Could We Cure Cancer In 20 Years? Heart Disease? Stroke?

[Dave1001]

Could we cure cancer in 20 years? Heart Disease? Stroke? How much would it cost to do so? What do you think, what do our best estimates from science and history indicate?

[HawkeyeMD]

No, no, and no.

"Cancer", "heart disease" and "stroke" aren't single entities, for one thing. Whatever advances there may be, they won't any of them have a single "cure".

(Well, okay, there's one cure that'll take care of all of them, but it's relatively unpopular...)

[CriticalThanking]

Hawkeye beat me to the "not a single disease bit."

There was a recent article in Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B1BED-0C0A-1498-8C0A83414B7F0000&sc=I100322) in which the "source" of the uncontrollably reproducing cells is discussed. With all the hoopla over stem cell research, the article points to damaged stem cells as the ones doing all the reproducing. If a cancer treatment only gets the "children" cells, the parent stem cell will continue to kick out copies and the cancer will recur (continue). As we find ways to target the stem cells, we may be able to selectively target the offenders without the full frontal chemical assault on the body. This may work well for a large class of cancers.

Will we prevent cancer? No. Will more cancers be treatable in the future? I have no doubt.

CT

[Dr. Imago]

You can start at home right now by putting down the cigarettes, passing on the extra helping of fried food, and getting out an exercising. Not only would that not cost very much, it would actually save money. My best estimates is that this will not happen, though, because exercise hurts and food tastes good.

-Dr. Imago

[Ducky]

I think the question should be can we cure ignorace of science and medicine in 20 years, or will Dave1001 still be posting overgeneralized and ill-informed posts then?

[Dave1001]

No, no, and no.

"Cancer", "heart disease" and "stroke" aren't single entities, for one thing. Whatever advances there may be, they won't any of them have a single "cure".

(Well, okay, there's one cure that'll take care of all of them, but it's relatively unpopular...)

Just because cancer, heart disease, and stroke aren't single entities doesn't mean that they couldn't all be cured as classes of ailments within 20 years if a certain amount of resources were invested into finding cures. Not to say that it would be possible, that's the question in my OP.

[Dave1001]

Hawkeye beat me to the "not a single disease bit."

There was a recent article in Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B1BED-0C0A-1498-8C0A83414B7F0000&sc=I100322) in which the "source" of the uncontrollably reproducing cells is discussed. With all the hoopla over stem cell research, the article points to damaged stem cells as the ones doing all the reproducing. If a cancer treatment only gets the "children" cells, the parent stem cell will continue to kick out copies and the cancer will recur (continue). As we find ways to target the stem cells, we may be able to selectively target the offenders without the full frontal chemical assault on the body. This may work well for a large class of cancers.

Will we prevent cancer? No. Will more cancers be treatable in the future? I have no doubt.

CT

I consider turning cancer into a manageable chronic illness rather than a terminal illness a functional cure. Do you think that's possible within twenty years if finances isn't an issue (within the limits of global GDP)?

[Dave1001]

I think the question should be can we cure ignorace of science and medicine in 20 years, or will Dave1001 still be posting overgeneralized and ill-informed posts then?

reported for incivility.

[Soapy Sam]

"incivility"
There's a word I have not seen for some time.

I find myself wondering if a "cure for cancer" might not lead to a cure for aging, followed in about forty years by more baby boomers.
Thank the gods I'm unlikely to be around to see it.

[Ducky]

reported for incivility.

so you were asking those questions knowing the answer, or was I right that you generally have an ignorance of medical science?

You *do* know "cancer" isn't one disease right? how exactly would we cure such a broad category?

PS. if that's an offensive post to you, please avoid the politics section as I fear you would wet yourself.

[aries]

HI :)

Recently, there was found a vaccine for cancer in the uterus (I think this is the correct English word ?) . When I was wee boy of 12, 30 years ago, if someone then had said that in thirty years there will a vaccine for uterine ? cancer, then everybody would have looked at them and said 'you must be joking'...

The point is that we can't say now which diseases and illnesses the doctors may be able to cure in about 20-30 years time. Also, many cancer patients nowadays to survive the disease (or illness?) and manage to live their lives
prosperously.

Personally, I would like to see a vaccine (or cure?) for hiv and aids as well as a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. I also remember seeing something about Danish medical researchers saying something about using nano cells or nano technology in order to combat the cancer cells. (can't find the link, though, also it is in Danish...)

[Dave1001]

so you were asking those questions knowing the answer, or was I right that you generally have an ignorance of medical science?


I'm better educated on medical science than the typical layperson (I have an undergraduate degree in a biomedical science field and I've worked for a pharmaceutical company). But of course there are people far more knowledgeable than myself about medical science, including on this discussion board.


You *do* know "cancer" isn't one disease right? how exactly would we cure such a broad category?


Yes to the first question. As for the second one, great question, and there's been lots of speculation about that by very smart people. I don't think there's a consensus answer yet, but I'm interested in other people's take on that topic.


PS. if that's an offensive post to you, please avoid the politics section as I fear you would wet yourself.

reported. Telling me "I fear you would wet yourself" is uncivil and impolite.

[CriticalThanking]

[Fowl - please give it a rest for a bit]

Turning a cancer into a manageable chronic illness is indeed what is happening for at least one type of leukemia. Gleevek is still in trials and is being tested for other types of cancer as well. All it took was time, money, and dedicated researchers at UT Southwestern medical center.

But we are back to the issue of cancer not being a single disease. Sorry - I don't believe cancer as a single entity could be cured within 20 years even with unlimited funding. The causes and physiology are too different.

I'd have to go along with Aries - the vaccine for cervical cancer is one of the most exciting things to come along in a while for cancers.

CT

[Dave1001]

[Fowl - please give it a rest for a bit]

Turning a cancer into a manageable chronic illness is indeed what is happening for at least one type of leukemia. Gleevek is still in trials and is being tested for other types of cancer as well. All it took was time, money, and dedicated researchers at UT Southwestern medical center.

But we are back to the issue of cancer not being a single disease. Sorry - I don't believe cancer as a single entity could be cured within 20 years even with unlimited funding. The causes and physiology are too different.

I'd have to go along with Aries - the vaccine for cervical cancer is one of the most exciting things to come along in a while for cancers.

CT

How many years out do you think we are? If it's just a matter of differences of causes and physiology (rather than actual raw time that a particular research to treatment cycle would take with unlimited funding) I don't see why we couldn't turn all the major types of cancer into non-terminal conditions within 20 years, with "unlimited funding" (or rather funding limited by GDP rather than by some arbitrary funding choice). Please expand on why you think there's an absolute cap precluding "curing cancer" within 20 years, if funding wasn't the issue.

[Ducky]

I'm better educated on medical science than the typical layperson (I have an undergraduate degree in a biomedical science field and I've worked for a pharmaceutical company). But of course there are people far more knowledgeable than myself about medical science, including on this discussion board.

Then certainly you can understand the difference between treating lymphotic or myelomic cancer versus treating prostate cancer. You cannot by any reasonable expectation then some sort of overall guage of when all of them will be cured for many reasons, not the least of which is funding and emphasis on research for more prolific cancers.

Yes to the first question. As for the second one, great question, and there's been lots of speculation about that by very smart people. I don't think there's a consensus answer yet, but I'm interested in other people's take on that topic.

What speculation are you referring to? Please cite your sources.

reported. Telling me "I fear you would wet yourself" is uncivil and impolite.

:rolleyes: Get over yourself.

How many years out do you think we are? If it's just a matter of differences of causes and physiology (rather than actual raw time that a particular research to treatment cycle would take with unlimited funding) I don't see why we couldn't turn all the major types of cancer into non-terminal conditions within 20 years, with "unlimited funding" (or rather funding limited by GDP rather than by some arbitrary funding choice). Please expand on why you think there's an absolute cap precluding "curing cancer" within 20 years, if funding wasn't the issue.

Once again you're trying to give a meta-timeline to something that has so many variables it cannot logically or accurately be predicted. But you know this because you understand cancer isn't one disease right? There's no absolute cap, there's no way of accurately predicting when an entire genre of disease will be erradicated. It's never happened before and it probably never will. That's like saying "When will we stomp out all viruses?"

[Ducky]

[Fowl - please give it a rest for a bit]

Turning a cancer into a manageable chronic illness is indeed what is happening for at least one type of leukemia. Gleevek is still in trials and is being tested for other types of cancer as well. All it took was time, money, and dedicated researchers at UT Southwestern medical center.

But we are back to the issue of cancer not being a single disease. Sorry - I don't believe cancer as a single entity could be cured within 20 years even with unlimited funding. The causes and physiology are too different.

I'd have to go along with Aries - the vaccine for cervical cancer is one of the most exciting things to come along in a while for cancers.

CT

It is also beginning to happen with Multiple Myeloma. And I agree with the exciting factor of the cervical cancer vaccine.

As for "giving it a rest" you'll have to pardon if my patience runs thin with people who ask inane questions like "When will all cancers be cured?" I hear it far too often to take it seriously, and it usually displays a marked lack of understanding of many things, medical science being one of them.

[Roboramma]

Dave, I don't think that you should interpret the above responses to mean that it's impossible that all cancers could be cured in twenty years.

I think you should interpret them to mean that you are being very naive to think that it's possible to quantify a certain amount of money (edit: or time) that would give us such cures. We just don't and can't know.

How could we? We don't know what could cure them - if we did, they'd be cured. Certainly we have some promising lines of research. But "cancer" is such a broad range of diseases that one line of research that holds promise for one cancer won't give us anything on another.

Maybe we'll make some wonderful new discovery in the next 20 years that will revolutionize our understanding how the human body works, how cancers start, how the immune system works, or something, that really would allow us to cure all forms of cancer. Maybe - but how will we know until we do? Maybe we won't make that discovery until we've made some other discovery in some completely unrelated field like atomic physics (perhaps giving us a new tool for use in treatment or diagnosis) or the genetics of sea squirts (who knows, maybe they would hold some key to understanding how cancers form, drugs that can hold them off, or something else seemingly unrelated that might inform something else that would eventually lead to a treatment).

The problem with just saying "ah, but what if the funding is unlimited", is that we don't know where to put the money yet. Sure, more funding could accelerate progress, and I'm sure good science and useful medicine would come of it. But you have to accelerate all of the important areas at the same time - and how are we to know that putting money into the genetics of sea squirts is more valuable than studying a new type of drug?

It's like the old story about the importance of basic research - who would ever have predicted that by studying physics we'd discover radio and all of it's uses?

This is why I think fowlsound is right to call your OP overgeneralised and uninformed.

[Ducky]

This is why I think fowlsound is right to call your OP overgeneralised and uninformed.

Thank you. (and I agree with the rest of what you posted as well.)

[Dave1001]

Once again you're trying to give a meta-timeline to something that has so many variables it cannot logically or accurately be predicted. But you know this because you understand cancer isn't one disease right? There's no absolute cap, there's no way of accurately predicting when an entire genre of disease will be erradicated. It's never happened before and it probably never will. That's like saying "When will we stomp out all viruses?"

If an when we'll eliminate viral infection as a cause of mortality (and the soonest point we possibly could) is an interesting question, too.

[Dave1001]

I think you should interpret them to mean that you are being very naive to think that it's possible to quantify a certain amount of money (edit: or time) that would give us such cures. We just don't and can't know.

How could we? We don't know what could cure them - if we did, they'd be cured.

Well, as a general principle, people far more intelligent (and perhaps less naive) than me, and probably you, do attempt to quantify how much money it would take to cure different diseases and classes of disease.

I think it's an interesting area for speculation and discussion, much like FTL travel in a different thread. Once the point of view is expressed "You can't travel faster than light, don't even discuss it" or "You can't quantify how much money it would take to cure cancer, don't even discuss it" I don't see the point in repeating that point endlessly. Others might enjoy speculating on this topic, just like FTL travel. And some enlightenment beyond "You can't quantify how much money it would take to cure cancer, don't even discuss it" may even come out of the discussion.

[Dave1001]

Interesting comment touching on this issue in the replies to this blog post:

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002614.html


It would be nice if increases in medical research funding could be expected to result in cheaper and better medical therapies, but this has rarely been the case. As a former NIH staffer, I saw very few proposals that had a direct link to better medical care, and almost none that could lead to cheaper care. Most NIH research is done in animals or, at best, human tissues (e.g., studies about human DNA), and there is no requirement that the proposal explain how it will improve human health.

What the health care system needs is 'applied research' similar to that which drove Toyota to improve their manufacturing processes, or that which drove the size and cost of computer chips down. NIH research focuses on refining understanding of very detailed questions that are usually irrelevant where the rubber hits the road. And saying that it just takes time for these discoveries to reach clinical use is a smokescreen. For example, millions of dollars were spent in the 80's and early 90's on peptic ulcer disease (stomach and upper bowel ulcers), and billions were spent on drugs to treat it. Meanwhile a couple of guys in Australia noticed that some antibiotics cured this 'incurable' disease. One can understand why big pharma were reluctant to look at this, they were making a lot of money on their antiulcer drugs, but NIH and the rest of the medical establishment also had an interest in ignoring this new (and cheap) treatment. Think of the research programs that would have to find something else to do. To make a very long story shorter, it took about 15 years for this treatment to gradually diffuse through the medical system.

NIH does a great job on supporting research into fundamental questions (like what happens when you change an amino acid in the DNA of the Zebrafish), and some small part of this may someday make clinical care better (cheaper is even tougher). But if you want to improve efficiency in medical care, you need a different approach and different agency/bureaucracy to spend the money. And that agency does not exist now.

[Dave1001]

Interesting piece on this by NCI in a document relating to their 2003 budget.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:I2ms4c7CMY4J:fmb.cancer.gov/financial/attachments/2003cj.PDF+%22we+could+cure+cancer%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=30

Interesting that less than 5 billion dollars were requested for allocation given the percentage of the population likely to die from this set of illnesses. Interesting how opinions of cancer have changed from 30 years ago to today, but it's also interesting to read about significant progress that has been made in this field.

I think it says in this document something to the effect that life-extending treatment improvements have been made in more than 1/2 of all known forms of cancer. That's a good accomplishment in 30 years, and indicates to me that it may not be impossible to make the major forms of cancer chronic rather than terminal within 20 years, particularly if the rate of medical progress is accellerating within this area.

[Ducky]

If an when we'll eliminate viral infection as a cause of mortality (and the soonest point we possibly could) is an interesting question, too.

No it isn't. Have you read anything posted here?

[Dave1001]

No it isn't. Have you read anything posted here?

Well, smarter people than you or me disagree with you about whether these sorts of speculative questions are interesting.

[Ducky]

Well, smarter people than you or me disagree with you about whether these sorts of speculative questions are interesting.

And you got this from a blog and the NCI making the conclusion that they need more money in a budget request?

Seriously, name your sources. What people?

[Dave1001]

Here's a few smart, rational people who engage in speculative discussion about curing the main causes of mortality, the finances involved, and the time frame involved.

Sonia Arrison
Ronald Bailey
David Ewing Duncan
Ray Kurzweil
Chris Mooney
Gina Smith
Gregory Stock

[Ducky]

Here's a few smart, rational people who engage in speculative discussion about curing the main causes of mortality, the finances involved, and the time frame involved.

Sonia Arrison
Ronald Bailey
David Ewing Duncan
Ray Kurzweil
Chris Mooney
Gina Smith
Gregory Stock

You seem to be missing the point.

You see on this forum, posting a list of names is not citing sources.

Do you have any sources you'd like to cite for discussion, or is this whole excersize rhetorical?

[Yuri Nalyssus]

Could we cure cancer in 20 years?But we already can cure cancer:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4325932.stm
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/survival/?a=5441
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=861
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/breast/survival/

... we're doing quite well and we're getting better at it.

What do you mean exactly?

Yuri