Why is cancer so hard to cure? Will we ever find an infallible cure?
In: 2088
First of all, “cancer” isn’t one disease. It’s a blanket term for a bunch of disorders characterized by the uncontrolled division of abnormal cells. There are 2 main types of lung cancer (and 5 subtypes), 5-6 main types of breast cancer, 3 main types of skin cancer (and several less common ones). “Cancer” is hard to cure, in part, because each cancer might have a totally different cure.
Individual cancerous conditions are hard to cure for a couple of reasons. Cancer is not comprised of foreign cells/material like a virus or bacteria. Cancer is your own body’s abnormal cells multiplying out of control. This presents 2 problems. First, your immune system doesn’t have as many tools to fight cancer as it does to fight infection. Second, many treatments that kill cancer also kill the good cells. Chemo and radiation, in their most basic forms, kill everything. In fact, many of the advancements we’ve made in cancer treatment research all about targeting ONLY the bad cells. Killing is easy (go stand next to a pile of plutonium); not harming the vital stuff is hard.
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