Thread

1. crustyoldhuman · 1789836025 · focus · HN ↗

   I feel like I see this headline ever 2 months. it's like cancer research. lots of fluff, never any progress. then you get the alien people saying it's cuz they're hiding aliens. i'm exhausted.

   1. dekhn · 1789849121 · focus · HN ↗

      While the popular press does bungle nearly all cancer research findings, the last 20 years have been unbelievably productive in cancer treatment. No, we haven't and aren't going to cure cancer any time soon.

      1. BurningFrog · 1789872455 · focus · HN ↗

         The thing is that "cancer" is thousands of separate diseases with similar traits.

         We'll never cure all of the at once, which is what "cure cancer" means, but we've been curing plenty of them lately!

         1. timr · 1789873917 · focus · HN ↗

            If by “curing”, you mean, “extending some indirect measurement that doesn’t correlate with survival”, then sure. Lots of those, usually backed by tiny, poorly controlled trials.

            Daraxonrasib was a rare exception. Most new cancer drugs are expensive and of dubious efficacy. Even daraxonrasib has a rather underwhelming life extension benefit, and huge side effects. But there’s no alternative, so people take what they can get.

         2. dekhn · 1789918953 · focus · HN ↗

            There are two different "cure cancer" meanings.

            I meant, when somebody stops having cancer, we don't say they were cured. We say they are remission. That's because even if you completely remove all visible tumor, 20 years later, a new tumor with the same genetic/cellular origin can arise.

            But the other meaning- modified slightly: "it is unlikely we will find a generic treatment that affects all types of cancer, since the underlying etiology of different incidences of cancer varies so much", is definitely also true.

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