• Question: Is there something that can cure cancer?

    Asked by elisa123 to Natasha on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Natasha Myhill

      Natasha Myhill answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Hi! Unfortunately there is no single cure for cancer. Every type of cancer (lung, skin, breast etc) is very different, both in how they are caused and how they can be treated. On top of that, even if the type of cancer is the same (e.g. skin), every person with that type of cancer reacts differently to treatment. So trying to find one cure for all cancer is practically impossible!

      What we can do at the moment is treat the different cancers the best we can. Unfortunately cancer is hard to treat so there isnt one treatment that works for everyone, as well as stopping the cancer coming back. At the moment, the gold-standard is chemotherapy. This is where the patient is given some pretty toxic drugs that kills rapidly dividing cells. Cancer cells are usually rapidly dividing, so the drug has an effect there, but this is why there are other side effects such as hair loss (hair follicles are some of the fastest dividing cells in the body). As well as chemotherapy, a number of other drugs and treatments to cancer have been developed. I am working with a company who treat skin cancer using the patient’s immune system! This treatment works in about 50% of those treated.

      Hope this helps, feel free to ask follow up Qs!

Comments

  • Photo: elisa123

    elisa123 commented on :

    thanks

  • Photo: Eoin

    Eoin commented on :

    I would argue ‘yes….but’. We know that our immune systems can provide long-lasting protection from cancers. Recently, new methods have been developed to help the immune system recognise cancer cells and they look like they can effectively ‘cure’ cancer. The problem is they only manage this in a small fraction of patients (maybe up to 20%). Its an exciting time, though – there are a large number of new immune treatments coming through with great promise and there is a huge amount of effort being poured in to understand why some peoples cancer goes away and some doesn’t……

    • Photo: Natasha

      Natasha commented on :

      This is something I am working on for my PhD – TIL Therapy! Unfortunately it is more complex than a ‘cure’, more a treatment as it can return and sometimes when we give the patients cells back they dont respond but that could be because they are already very ill. Its a difficult process but I do think cancer immunotherapy is a promising field, like Eoin says 🙂