# How long, seriously, before we have a cure for cancer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329 "2012-03-30T22:02:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/21 "2012-04-02T15:48:47Z")
Can’t get to the article at the moment; could someone clarify the OP? What does “death rate for cancer has fallen a mere 5% since 1950” mean? That for the most part, someone who is diagnosed with cancer today has the same basic prognosis as their grandfather did 60 years ago? That lifespans are similar? That if given a choice between the two technologies someone with a thing for the 1950s is going to be just as well off being treated by a doctor/hospital with 1950s technology and training? Advances in imaging and detection alone make me think I’m grossly misinterpreting the statistic. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/22 "2012-04-02T15:49:45Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Has medicine ever “cured” anything? I’m not aware of any diseases that have actually been cured. There are numerous diseases caused by bacterial infection that are cured by antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/23 "2012-04-02T15:58:30Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Has medicine ever “cured” anything? I’m not aware of any diseases that have actually been cured. > > If, at some point in the future, medicine actually succeeds at curing something it probably won’t be cancer. Yeah, this. My vote is for “never”. I hope, and would love to believe that’s not the case, but given the vast amounts of research, time, and money that have been poured into it already, I’m not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/24 "2012-04-02T17:23:46Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Has medicine ever “cured” anything? I’m not aware of any diseases that have actually been cured. How about [Smallpox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox), which has been eradicated through vaccination. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/25 "2012-04-02T17:47:32Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Has medicine ever “cured” anything? I’m not aware of any diseases that have actually been cured. [Hodgkin’s Disease](http://www.wikicancer.org/page/Hodgkin%27s+lymphoma+-+prognosis). [Childhood acute lympoblastic leukemia (ALL)](http://leukaemialymphomaresearch.org.uk/information/childhood-leukaemia/acute-lymphoblastic-leukaemia/prognosis). (for neither is the cure rate 100%, I admit) . I will simply note that both Hodgkin’s and ALL, diseases of young adults and kids in particular, used to be pretty much death sentences. Maybe you’d like to ask a HD or ALL survivor, or their parents, if medicine has ever cured anything. HD and ALL are just two diseases. There are many other examples of cancer cures (again, I admit not at 100%, but there are lots of surgical cures of some lung or GI cancers, retinoblastoma . . .) ETA: Oh, you mean ‘eradicated’? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/26 "2012-04-02T20:19:29Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [hijack] > A few years ago I heard of an effort, sponsored and coordinated at a very high level of government/health research (possibly the NIH?) to have research physicists, inorganic chemists, etc,: > > 1. review the very questions being asked by cancer researchers (i.e. are the latter asking the ‘right’ questions) > > and > > 1. from their perspective as physicists, etc, and despite them having no training or special knowledge about cancer, ask “out of left field” questions about cancer and cancer research, and identify hidden assumptions that cancer researchers may be using. > > Anyone know about this? In particular, any follow-up? Of course the problem is that no one knows in advance what the “right” question will be. A physicist or chemist has no better idea than does a molecular biologist. The problem inherent in the “war on cancer” model is thinking of it as an engineering problem, like building a vehicle that can go to the moon. It is not an engineering problem; it is an issue of expanding basic understanding of the processes and much of the greatest progress has occurred as “happy accidents” while looking for something else. (See [this book](http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Accidents-Serendipity-Medical-Breakthroughs/dp/1559708190) by that name.) From discovering the cancer treating utility of nitrogen mustard as a result of a wartime bombing of Bari Harbor causing a covered up exposure in the water, to the accidental discovery of cis-platinum just because platinum was chosen to use a wire because it was thought to be inert, to the exploration of deaths in chickens leading to the concepts of retroviruses and oncogenes, to the vinca alkaloids being discovered looking for something to help control blood sugars, to the accidental discovery of folic acid antagonists (methotrexate), and so on and on. (Really a very fun book!) The engineering approach has its applications, but broadly support research in all quarters, making sure that the scientists doing so are not so narrowly focused so that a lucky accident can land next to a prepared mind … this is where the big breakthroughs will come from. By its nature unpredictable. ---
**Author:** ![Beable\_von\_Polasm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Beable\_von\_Polasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beable_von_Polasm)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/27 "2012-04-02T20:26:12Z")
June 14th, 2055. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/28 "2012-04-02T21:29:33Z")
> [@Stelios](#): > > As far as I know, I’m currently big C free. That said, I _am_ a pack a day smoker, so that may only be temporary. You’ll then be delighted to know that in your case we’ve ALREADY got a cure for lung cancer – stop smoking, and you’ll never get 90% of them. ---
**Author:** ![Beable\_von\_Polasm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Beable\_von\_Polasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beable_von_Polasm)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/29 "2012-04-02T21:43:20Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > You’ll then be delighted to know that in your case we’ve ALREADY got a cure for lung cancer – stop smoking, and you’ll never get 90% of them. You can start to relax 5 years after quitting, and breathe a sigh of relief after 10. Or start smoking pot. It’s so chock full of carcinogens that researchers are dumbfounded there’s no apparently correlation to lung cancer. That leaves but one explanation – something in it counteracts the carcinogens. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/30 "2012-04-02T23:35:10Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [Hodgkin’s Disease](http://www.wikicancer.org/page/Hodgkin%27s+lymphoma+-+prognosis). [Childhood acute lympoblastic leukemia (ALL)](http://leukaemialymphomaresearch.org.uk/information/childhood-leukaemia/acute-lymphoblastic-leukaemia/prognosis). (for neither is the cure rate 100%, I admit) . I will simply note that both Hodgkin’s and ALL, diseases of young adults and kids in particular, used to be pretty much death sentences. Maybe you’d like to ask a HD or ALL survivor, or their parents, if medicine has ever cured anything. > > HD and ALL are just two diseases. There are many other examples of cancer cures (again, I admit not at 100%, but there are lots of surgical cures of some lung or GI cancers, retinoblastoma . . .) > > ETA: Oh, you mean ‘eradicated’? By “cure” I mean a treatment that brings about a full recovery from a disease in nearly all of the patients who are treated. What constitutes “nearly all” is debatable but I certainly wouldn’t consider a 35% mortality within 5 years indicated in your first cite to be “cured.” ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/31 "2012-04-03T00:01:09Z")
No idea. However assuming medical progress continues to grow rapidly, there is no telling (more scientists on earth, more money spent on research, more productive research, etc all combining). I don’t know if I believe in Kurzweil’s theory of exponential growth, but I’m sure medical science will be many times more productive 50 years from now than it is today. As a WAG, 50-150 years from now. But no idea within that wide window. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/32 "2012-04-03T00:57:20Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Has medicine ever “cured” anything? I’m not aware of any diseases that have actually been cured. > > If, at some point in the future, medicine actually succeeds at curing something it probably won’t be cancer. Well it has cured the death of evil. Dick Cheney would be dead in two years without his heart transplant. Medicine makes life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and much longer than in the days of blood-letting and humors. So take heart. Literally. Or is that figuratively? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/33 "2012-04-03T02:20:28Z")
What are the current thoughts on the future use of nanobots in fighting cancer? Way too far out to give serious thought right now, or something our great-great-grandchildren might see? ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/34 "2012-04-04T21:12:26Z")
Nobody that knows anything about the current state of nanotechnology seriously talks about nanobots at all, much less curing cancer with them. Carbon nanotubes are barely making it in even experimental forms of commercial product, and what products they are being used in are as a bulk material. In order to make useful nanobots we need to figure out how to manufacture one, figure out how to scale that manufacturing by 10^6, and figure out how to power them. We are exponentially closer to commercial fusion power than we are to nanobots. They are just barely making a molecular motor, and last I heard it was mostly a series of reactions on a molecule that pivots. It takes several days to react and isolate the product from each reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/36 "2012-06-04T14:08:21Z")
For an extremely interesting history of humanity’s long struggle against cancer, I highly recommend [The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.](http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperor-All-Maladies-Biography/dp/1439170916/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338818656&sr=8-1) The author is an oncologist, and he covers everything from the ancient Egyptian’s understanding of it (“there’s nothing you can do”), up through the development of surgical techniques, the evolution of chemotherapy from chemical weapons, the understanding of causes/risk factors, the battle to get adequate research funding, changing public attitudes toward cancer, and so on. I’m 2/3 of the way through, and it’s been fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/37 "2012-06-04T15:40:33Z")
I, for one, feel a bit worn out from the endless cancer research fundraising that has been going on since I was a child. “Race for the Cure”? You’ve been racing for 30 years and we’ve given you millions, what’s taking you so long? Sometimes I wonder how much cancer fundraising really advances our understanding of cancer and how much actually goes to buying researchers a new beach house and spiffier BMW’s. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/38 "2012-06-04T17:50:45Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Sometimes I wonder how much cancer fundraising really advances our understanding of cancer and how much actually goes to buying researchers a new beach house and spiffier BMW’s. Seriously? Is that where you are letting your frustration take you? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/39 "2012-06-04T18:10:18Z")
I highly doubt there’s any area of research, at all, where beach houses and BMWs are the norm for the researchers. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/40 "2012-06-04T19:20:05Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > I, for one, feel a bit worn out from the endless cancer research fundraising that has been going on since I was a child. “Race for the Cure”? You’ve been racing for 30 years and we’ve given you millions, what’s taking you so long? Sometimes I wonder how much cancer fundraising really advances our understanding of cancer and how much actually goes to buying researchers a new beach house and spiffier BMW’s. Just so you know that that money hasn’t been entirely wasted, I’ve attached a a[link](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/12/cancer-survival-rates-doubled)to show how far we’ve come. > [@](#): > > Breast, bowel and prostate cancer survival rates have shot up, as have those for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia. The study, for Cancer Research UK, compared data on 10-year survival rates of patients diagnosed with cancer in 1971-72 with the expected survival rates of those diagnosed in 2007. On average it found that 45.2% of cancer patients are now expected to survive at least 10 years, compared with 23.7% in the 1970s. As far as how the resources are being used, they are much more likely to be spent on expensive pieces of equipment, reagents, and patient expenses than lining the researchers pockets. Most researchers I know could probably earn much more money in private practice, but prefer the intangible benefits that arise from working to solve a difficult problem that affects many peoples lives. Looking into the future, over the last 10 years we have started getting together the tools to really understand the molecular basis for cancer. This is the electrical engineering equivalent of having just invented the micro-processor. It will take some time to figure out what it all means but there are already clinical trials that are evaluating therapies that will target precisely those things that make a cancer cell malignant. This will result in fewer off target effects making the treatments have fewer side effects. Cancer can be very tricky so a blanket cure for all cancer types probably won’t probably be found in our life time, but even in the next 10-15 years I expect there to be a dramatically rapid improvement in prognosis. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329/41 "2012-06-04T19:28:54Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Anyway, your question is necessarily speculative, but I am more optimistic than most. I predict that within 20 years, you will be able to test yourself for most kinds of cancer very easily, that it will be a matter of downloading a “test for cancer” ap to your phone. And that extremely early-detected cancers will be able to be zapped pretty easily with some kind of radiation gun. It probably won’t work exactly this way. In most cases to test for cancer you will need to have a test sample that contains cancer cells. This will mean either that you have a biopsy taken at the site of that cancer, or else your cancer is so metastatic that cancer cells are pervasive in your body. So I think a test for cancer will not be an over the counter procedure. Also I think that the new treatments for cancer are more likely to be chemical rather than radiation in nature. But overall I share your optimism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-seriously-before-we-have-a-cure-for-cancer/617329.md?page=3)