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MEDICINE has done a great job of reducing deaths from heart disease and stroke but less so with cancer.
The main reason that cancer has been such a hard problem to tackle is a lack of basic understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms that drive it…[During World War II,] [n]ew drugs were discovered that acted on cancer, but this sort of science was not particularly revealing about the cause of cancer or why these treatments often only worked temporarily.
Much progress has been made since…[T]here exist today a growing number of targeted therapies that have been designed at a molecular level to recognise particular features specific of cancer cells. Along with chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy, these treatments—used singly and in combination—have led to a slow, but steady, increase in survival rates.
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The world has still not cured the many cancers that exist. But over the next five to ten years the era of personalised medicine could see enormous progress in making cancer survivable.
Read full, original post: Why cancer has not been cured
