Good question! I think we seem to be going at a steady pace, but that depends on who you ask. Ultimately, it probably depends on what your expectations are of progress; my hunch is that people have higher expectations for cancer than for other diseases, particularly since it’s received so much attention historically, and that sets us up for inevitable failure when these expectations fail to materialize – much like the ‘war on cancer’ in the latter part of the 1900’s.
Broadly speaking, one can approach this from a treatment perspective and a prevention perspective. From a treatment perspective, there is definitely progress: “Since 1971, the cancer death rate is down more than 25 percent. Between 1975 and 2016, the five-year survival rate increased 36 percent. The arsenal of anticancer therapies has expanded more than tenfold.” We’re also in a position now where immunotherapies are becoming commonplace, and the drugs are becoming highly sophisticated. I think the next big treatment frontier is figuring out how best to use the arsenal of drugs we have, i.e., can we combine therapies in such a way that our treatments become more effective. We obviously hope to keep developing breakthrough drugs, but there’s a lot of untapped potential in lower-cost solutions and re-combining cancer drugs in new ways. This would also certainly save money, but pharmaceutical companies are obviously not as interested in doing this. To sum up, I think the treatment frontier involves greater experimentation with the implementation of drugs we currently have.
I’m not as convinced that our cancer prevention progress has been as impressive, however. Obviously, we’ve gotten a lot better at identifying environmental contaminants that might increase the likelihood of developing cancer, but a lot of the lifestyle diseases (e.g., obesity) that increase the risk of cancer haven’t been solved by any means. Ultimately, preventing cancer in the first place is a lot more efficient than having to treat it later.
As the saying goes – cancer is such a heterogenous phenomenon that it might not be prudent to lump them all together. They’re so distinct that the ‘war on cancer’ is more a ‘war on many, many fronts’. We’re definitely making progress, but we shouldn’t expect a one-size-fits-all solution anytime soon.
Are we winning the war on cancer? Is it reasonably fast/steady progress, or has something gone wrong?
Good question! I think we seem to be going at a steady pace, but that depends on who you ask. Ultimately, it probably depends on what your expectations are of progress; my hunch is that people have higher expectations for cancer than for other diseases, particularly since it’s received so much attention historically, and that sets us up for inevitable failure when these expectations fail to materialize – much like the ‘war on cancer’ in the latter part of the 1900’s.
Broadly speaking, one can approach this from a treatment perspective and a prevention perspective. From a treatment perspective, there is definitely progress: “Since 1971, the cancer death rate is down more than 25 percent. Between 1975 and 2016, the five-year survival rate increased 36 percent. The arsenal of anticancer therapies has expanded more than tenfold.” We’re also in a position now where immunotherapies are becoming commonplace, and the drugs are becoming highly sophisticated. I think the next big treatment frontier is figuring out how best to use the arsenal of drugs we have, i.e., can we combine therapies in such a way that our treatments become more effective. We obviously hope to keep developing breakthrough drugs, but there’s a lot of untapped potential in lower-cost solutions and re-combining cancer drugs in new ways. This would also certainly save money, but pharmaceutical companies are obviously not as interested in doing this. To sum up, I think the treatment frontier involves greater experimentation with the implementation of drugs we currently have.
I’m not as convinced that our cancer prevention progress has been as impressive, however. Obviously, we’ve gotten a lot better at identifying environmental contaminants that might increase the likelihood of developing cancer, but a lot of the lifestyle diseases (e.g., obesity) that increase the risk of cancer haven’t been solved by any means. Ultimately, preventing cancer in the first place is a lot more efficient than having to treat it later.
As the saying goes – cancer is such a heterogenous phenomenon that it might not be prudent to lump them all together. They’re so distinct that the ‘war on cancer’ is more a ‘war on many, many fronts’. We’re definitely making progress, but we shouldn’t expect a one-size-fits-all solution anytime soon.