Curing Cancer

What does it mean to cure cancer? Is it possible?

When people find out what I do, I often receive comments or questions about whether I think there will ever be a cure for cancer. Before we find a solution to a problem, we must define what the goal is. What is a cure? Do I believe that someday there will be a time when no person on earth has cancer? No, I do not. Our bodies are not meant to last forever. They are intricate, beautiful machines with limitations. They are made of billions of cells that each undergo the process of copying themselves, and it is during this process that mistakes can be made that cause the cell to stop responding to signals that tell it to stop dividing. To somehow engineer cells to stop making mistakes is a scary concept. It is the imperfection and variability of the genetic code that makes us all different.

So what is a cure? A disease is cured when it is no longer a problem. We think of cure as eradication -- like one cures an infection. Infection is when another organism invades the body and causes illness. By exploiting the differences between the invading organism and the invaded body, we can kill one without harming the other. We can eradicate many infections. That said, we can also eradicate certain cancers because those cancer cells are very different from the normal body cells and more susceptible to drugs we've developed. Still, this is not true of many other cancer types.

One of my biggest goals as an oncologist is to kill the cancer without killing the patient. It sounds crass, but it is true. When the scientific community first discovered that certain poisons could kill cancer cells, the world was desperate for anything to stop cancer from being an immediate death sentence that many people died from the toxicity of chemotherapy. It has taken years to fine-tune dosing and combinations that work. However, sometimes cancer cells are so well-protected and adapt to resist the insults of chemo so well, that we can't kill them all. They are, after all, human cells. Some of these cells will lurk in the body for years -- sometimes for the rest of someone's life.

Many diseases can't be eradicated. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and many cancers become part of someone's physiology. However, we have learned how to control them. We can keep them from overtaking the body and maybe even control the cancer to the point where we can't detect it anymore. But again, cancer cells are intelligent. Many times, if we stop treatment, the microscopic cells we can't see will multiply and return to cause problems. This is the same concept we use to treat the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

So back to my question: what is a cure? Here is what I think:

Curing cancer

Whether the cancer is gone or not, treating a person so the symptoms of the cancer go away

Whether the cancer is gone or not, allowing a person to live as long as a person their age without cancer

Whether the cancer is gone or not, allowing a person to live fully…not just stay alive

Do I think we can cure cancer? Yes, I do.

Thanks for reading.

Dr. G

(Coming soon: my thoughts on how this cure is going to happen)