World Cancer Day: Are we killing cancer?

Are oncologists right to hail a new era in which cancer is a chronic disease rather than a death sentence?

 

This is not the end, warned Winston Churchill in 1942. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” How apt his words seem this morning, on World Cancer Day, when applied to our long battle against the disease. There is, indeed, new cause for hope. Last week Prof Alan Ashworth, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, launched a £3 million DNA database, the Tumour Profiling Unit, to identify genes responsible for cancers that will become targets for new therapies.

This means patients will have their tumour’s DNA decoded, and then be matched precisely with the right drugs to keep the disease at bay. Prof Ashworth explained that this is a crucial step towards transforming some types of cancer into a manageable disease rather than a death sentence. “We should be aspiring to cure cancer, but for people with advanced disease, it will be a question of managing them better so they survive for much longer, turning cancer into a chronic disease.”

Read more -  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9482981/World-Cancer-Day-Are-we-killing-cancer.html