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Asked by 428brna35 to Áine, Ciarán, Eoin, Lydia, Victoria on 18 Nov 2014.
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Lydia Bach answered on 18 Nov 2014:
Hey!
Different cancers have different reasons, and therefore have to be treated in different ways. Currently scientists work hard on finding cures for cancers, but there will never be just one cure that fits all types of cancers.
So yes, a cure for cancer is possible, but it will probably be lots of different drugs or therapies depending on what the cancer is and where it is. Scientists are working hard on finding those!
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Ciarán O'Brien answered on 18 Nov 2014:
For some types of cancer, I think definitely. If it’s a kind of cancer that causes a tumor to grow, we have good ways of curing that already: A surgeon can cut it out, or we can kill it by firing radiation at it in a way that doesn’t harm the rest of the body.
Other cancers aren’t so easy to treat. You can get cancer in your blood, so there’s no tumor to cut out and nothing to target with radiation.
Some of these trickier cancers can be treated with chemotherapy, but that’s pretty much just poisoning yourself and hoping that the cancer dies before you do, it’s very unpleasant.
Scientists are working on several cures for cancer all the time. One option is creating special viruses that will only infect and kill cancer cells.
Another option is nanotechnology, where scientists work out a piece of DNA that only the cancer cells have, and developing a tiny machine containing a tiny dose of a drug that will only release the drug when it finds a cell with that exact DNA.
Both of those options are a long time off, but eventually I think we’ll be able to cure most cancers, if not all of them 🙂
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