With so much money spent on trying to find cures for cancer, why is there not a cure yet? Here we explore the reasons why cancer is especially hard to cure, but also the reasons to be optimistic.
The most important thing to understand is that cancer is not one disease - it's an umbrella term for more than 200.
Each broad cancer type has many sub-types, and they all look and behave differently because they are different on a genetic and molecular level. Because cancer arises from our own cells, each cancer can be as different and diverse as people are.
Not only that, but myriads of mutations exist.
Cancer is caused by the appearance of faults in our DNA, called mutations, which cause cells to grow uncontrollably. Underlying the 200+ different cancers are a myriad of different genetic mutations.
Every cancer is caused by a build-up of mutations and, as the cancer progresses, more and more different mutations accumulate. This means two people with the same broad type of cancer can carry individual sets of mutations. This means a drug that works for one cancer patient might have absolutely no effect for another.
Cancer cells within a single tumour are not identical
Different cancer cells in the same tumour can have different mutations. Although an original set of mutations caused the cancer to appear, over time new mutations can appear and cause the cells to change.
That means treatments may kill all of one type of cell in a tumour, while others that are resistant survive the treatment and grow in number again. This is also how, if not spotted early, cancer spreads to other places in the body – a new mutation gives a new line of cancer cells the ability to survive in the bloodstream and move elsewhere.
Treatments can eventually stop working
The genetic mutations that cancer cells acquire over time mean that the cells change the way they behave. This can be an incredibly difficult problem during treatment because the mutations can lead to cancer cells developing resistance to a treatment over time - a patient may have success with a treatment for some time, then find that it stops working.
If that happens, the patient will then have to be put on to a different treatment – but again, the cancer could develop resistance to the new drug. There also may not be any alternative options if that treatment fails.
Cancer cells are really good at staying alive
Normal cells have 'safety’ mechanisms in place that stop them from growing or dividing too much, and every day our immune system kills off cells that could have become a problem. Cancer cells have lost these mechanisms and can hide from the immune system, so they survive and continue to grow out of control. Cancer cells can develop an arsenal of tricks to avoid being killed.
So will there ever be a cure for cancer?
While there won’t ever be one single cure for cancer - because it is not a single disease and doesn’t have a single cause - new breakthroughs will help us find new cures for the 200+ types of cancer that exist.
The discovery research that our Curestarters support is vital, because it allows us to turn the best ideas into new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat all types of cancer.
It is only through research that we will stop the suffering caused by cancer and reach a day when no life is cut short by the disease. And we have already made great progress.
Thanks to research, cancer survival rates in the UK have doubled since the 1970s, and one in two people diagnosed with cancer can now expect to survive for 10 years or more after their diagnosis.
But there is still a lot of work to be done, and that is why we need your support more than ever.
Just some of the researchers working hard to find new answers to these problems:
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Can we stop cancer becoming resistant to chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy can sometimes stop working, so this project is hoping to better understand why and find ways to give more, better options to cancer patients.
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Why do treatments not work for some non-smoking lung cancer patients?
Researchers hope that exploring the effect of specific mutations on the development of lung cancer will pave the way for personalised treatments for patients.
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Why does combination treatment stop working for some cancer patients?
This project hopes to discover new ways to prevent the development of resistance to cancer treatments which is crucial to stop people dying from cancer.
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Do cancer cells work collectively to survive, spread and resist treatment?
This project hopes to find new ways to stop cancer spreading and stop it resisting treatments by understanding better how cancer cells collaborate.
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Could testosterone be used to treat a very rare cancer?
Adrenocortical cancer is rare and aggressive, with limited treatments. These researchers have found exciting signs that testosterone could help slow its growth.
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Can we make our immune systems better at stopping cancer?
This project aims to progress the development of powerful new immunotherapy treatments by uncovering vital new information about how our immune system works.
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Can we flick the right switches to prevent cancer progression?
Researchers want to discover new combinations of treatment that could tackle the problem of cancer becoming resistant to therapy and help patient outcomes.
But it is not just the scientists who are making these breakthroughs happen. We cannot fund vital research like this without the support of Curestarters like you. Together we can save lives by discovering new cures for all types of cancer. Will you join us today?
Donate now & become a Curestarter
Be part of a united effort to stop lives being cut short by cancer.
