In this day and age, we’re surely close to eradicating cancer, right? According to Professor Gordon McVie, senior consultant at the European Institute of Oncology, in Milan, ‘The number of cases should be falling anyway, given how much we know about lifestyle factors – such as smoking or obesity – triggering cancer. The public are more aware, but this hasn’t always translated into changed behaviour.’ So where are we exactly with specific cancers, and what cures are on the horizon?
About 42,000 cases of lung cancer are diagnosed every year, and 35,000 deaths occur because of it. This is the most common cause of cancer death. About 30% of people survive for at least one year after diagnosis, but less than 10% make past five years and only 5% survive longer than 10 years. 90% of cases are caused by smoking, but if you have a first-degree relative with lung cancer your risk is increased by 51 per cent, regardless of your smoking habits.
The treatment focus is currently on earlier diagnosis through the screening of chemicals detected in blood and sputum, but there are various drug trials including biological therapies, monoclonal antibodies (those made by identical immune cells), immunotherapies (which use the body’s defence system to attack cancer cells) and growth-suppressing drugs.
Bowel cancer is diagnose in over 40,000 people and is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK, causing about 16,000 deaths per year. 64% of all bowel cancers are of the colon, and the remaining 36% are of the rectum (including the anus). If caught early, over 90% survive after five years of diagnosis, but only 9% of UK patients are diagnosed when the cancer is still contained in the bowel, and once it spreads to the lymph nodes and/or beyond, about 47% survive more than five years.
There have been two genes identified by British researchers that parents pass on to their children, and these greatly increase the risk of a tumour forming when faulty. There are all kinds of therapies on the horizon, including stents in the bowel to relieve blockages, robotic surgery and even fish oil supplements, as well as new ways of combining chemotherapy and existing drugs.
Finally, every year, nearly 55,000 are diagnosed with breast cancer, and about 36,000 have secondary breast cancer, meaning that the disease has spread. 82% of patients survive beyond five years (including those whose breast cancer has spread but are still alive after five years), and over 75% survive beyond 10 years.
The genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been identified as increasing your risk of breast cancer five times over, and are found in 5% of cases. There are currently trials underway to see if keyhole surgery is a better procedure than lumpectomies or mastectomies and other studies are looking at the prophylactic use of the drug tamoxifen in high-risk women.
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