The cure for cancer: why is it taking so long?

Not sure but believe there should be a Manhattan Project-style attack on cancer, with the requisite funds to keep the research going strong.

The "Emperor of Maladies" attempts to answer that question, and is a history of cancer and all the treatments that have developed over time. It's a pretty good read. The most success in fighting cancer has been prevention and not treatments per se.
Eliminating smoking, cancer causing chemicals and viruses have been much more successful than treatments.

For one thing there is not just one cancer. There are subtypes of cancer such that there might be scores or hundreds of different cancer cells.

They are attacking cancer from many different angles.

NEW TYPES OF THERAPIES Being Developed

 

Epigenetic medicines taken before chemo

Virus therapies that attack cancer cells

Vaccines to build immunity

T-cell banking , T-cells from stem cells, modified T-cells

Combination chemotherapy

Nanotechnology

boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) new kind of radiation

Antibody Drug Conjugates

carboranes

Microwave ablation

Electrochemotherapy

modified glucose therapy

Kanzius Machine

uncloaking cancer to the immune system

 

There are a lot of things in the works. Some of these might make cancer more of a chronic illness.

The Lieutenant--81GyGuy,
I was so depressed from this darned disease that I took a month long break but decided recently to "MANUP" and return; the recent events with our "women warriors" and my inability to help really left me in a funk. So many men have lost their wives to BC or else are fighting this disease is really depressing.
The story of a husband and his wife sharing a "chemo stand" really hit me hard. Thankfully we have "experts" like Tall Allen, John T, and Tony who try to keep us abreast of new developments and their advice is always appreciated! I didn't watch DavidG's video on a woman dying of BC and won't. At my age I finally realized that I am not temperamentally the man I used to be.
My heart goes out to young men fighting this disease like Apple, Red, Casper, and all the others with hopes of being cured and many are relying on different chemicals to fight PCa. Although I have always tried to present positive remarks to ADT (Lupron) to allay men's fears such as Compiler, for young men on this "crap" I feel for them...Yeah, it may be the only game in town but for those on a long course of it I doubt seriously that the libido for them will ever return.
I used to be a "dictator" with decent conversational skills, but I really feel useless when I can't convince my 2 boys to get a psa test since Consumer Reports recommends against it. Yesterday I received a cortisone shot at my VA medical facility and a friend (RN) told her 59 year old husband to make sure he had a psa test at his physical. A Mayo doctor talked him out of it...I guess that live goes on but many times we are going back to the dark ages! Sorry guys and maybe I shouldn't post unless I have good news, but I'll be at my sister's cancer surgery early next month....
Bill

My opinion on this topic is jaded. Why cure for a dollar when you can treat for 100 dollars. Follow the money. Zytiga is 60000 dollars a year multiply that times 20000 cases in the usa and moreso the world. Cure pca and all that money goes away. That is an @$$ load of money. we are addicted to the drug dealers poison. I will take another dime baag please

Todd,

Your scenario appears to call for a remarkable degree of stick-togetherness on the part of the players in big pharma. A company that found a patentable cure for a wide swath of cancers could write their own ticket. The new drug would impact the sales of their other cancer drugs, sure, but it would crush the sales of all of their competitors cancer drugs. They could set their price to maximize profit and run their competitors into the ground.

I agree with John T, "The Emperor o All Maladies" is an excellent review of the long, long struggle to begin to understand what cancer is, much less treat it.

NewspaperLover

What we must remember about cancer and many don't realise is it is "us" gone wrong. While many diseases are curable a disease such as cancer has different basics. Think, if you will, of your body as an intelligent machine who programming has gone wrong. Rather than cells dividing and replicating in a specified way that instructs them to do a certain job, remain in a certain place and then dying and being replaced by new like minded cells, the basic instruction goes wrong. Up pops a newly divided cell who is now immortal and whose programming does not now include the "do this job, stay where you are". The new cell divides, often faster than the correct program instructs, it does not die as it should and it now has the ability to wander. Some of these cells do wander and set up new bases. In the case of prostate cancer a patient with metastatic disease now has what is essentially a new, corrupted prostate growing in their bones or their liver or their lungs or their brain. The cancer does not actually kill, because it is your tissue, a part of what makes you, you. What it does do is disrupt the function of the organs it invades making them unworkable (imagine a new prostate growing in your brain ----- your brain's function becomes unworkable) and that is how it kills.
Therein lies the great difficulty in finding a cure. Catch a bug or parasite ----- it is fairly easy to find a drug that will kill the bug or parasite in you but not damage the host and a cure is effected. But to kill off a part of you while not killing all of you --- that is the problem with cancer.
But I have no doubt that a cure will be found. Undoubtably there are proteins, enzymes or whatever that will be specific to a cell gone wrong and that is what will be targeted. Nail those cells only and you are cured. Cancer occurs in all animals and peoples, whether they are exposed to toxins or not. The operating program of life just simply developed a very serious flaw.
It is also worthwhile noting that we cannot, as a rule, cure virus caused diseases (Smallpox, HIV, Ebola, viral Meningitis, etc etc------ we can prevent catching them via immunisation but if a person has no previous immunity the virus based disease will run its course till the body's T cells build up enough to kill off the invader. This however is often too little and late to save the victim.
Bill

Post Edited (BillyMac) : 10/24/2013 4:53:04 PM (GMT-6)

I would venture to say more money, talent, resources, et al, have been spent on cancer research and the hope for a cure, than the Manhatten project. I see no comparison there, but thats just me, and I won't quibble. Sorry Todd, I can be pretty cynical, but there are people out there genuinely looking for a cure thinking about a cure sacrificing for a cure and they will find a cure. In the meantime as others have pointed out, we can all help ourselves by keeping a strong body, mind and spirit so as to help our brother and sister warriors, who are fighting this battle right along with the rest of us, but on a different front. Sure there are grubbers and charlatans in all fields of life. They are their own "reward". The others on that front have the same hopes, fears, disappointments as the rest of us. They work diligently, honestly and with the same pride as the janitor , the burger flipper, the clerks…. Why? Because they are human beings in the fullest sense of the word. Keep believing, a cure, will come as sure as the sunshines and rain falls on us all. Oh and Gunfighter, just keep doing what your doing, Its your heart that redeems…….

Logo,
Heading to Oahu in three weeks for work. I hope to feel the Hawaiian hospitality!

Tony

Sorry to hijack, 81, Last post to Logo...
My email is open logo. But I don't think I'll get to return to Maui. We were there 17 years ago on our honeymoon. I'll be at Waikiki, Hawaiian Village. Working at the Hokulani site getting ready to re-open.

I am only there for four days. But if we get done on Saturday and have no need to be there, I would consider an Island hop to say hello. I arrive the 13th and leave the 18th.

Tony

I think the big one is that cancer is not a monolithic thing.

As such, a monolithic "cure for cancer" is never going to happen. The "cure for the common cold" also eludes a solution, but gets a lot less money, since few die from it.

As some understanding of the complexities and variations _is_ found, some treatments can be more specifically targeted for patients with particular variants - but the nature of the beast is mutation (thus change - thus, very hard to nail down) and there are few if any "general strategies" that work. Meanwhile the "very targeted" strategies remain "very expensive." We might hope for some improvement in that realm.