• Question: Has any of your cures to treat Cancer patients worked so far?

    Asked by 465cesf27 to RobB on 13 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Rob Brass

      Rob Brass answered on 13 Jun 2016:


      We tend to use the word control rather than cure as we often cant tell if the cancer has spread to other sites. So we’re trying to control it in a particular area using radiotherapy.

      Our control rates are probably a lot higher than people think! In the UK, 50% of cancer patients survive for 10 or more years after being diagnosed! This covers a range of easy and hard to treat cancers, so some survival rates will be a lot higher while some will be lower. This also covers patients who may not have radiotherapy.

      For breast cancer, 80% of women will survive for 10 or more years, and 2/3 women will survive for 20 or more years! We tend to get breast cancer patients after surgery, so the lump has been removed and we’re delivering radiation to the area to ‘mop up’ any cells that were missed. If a single cancer cell survives then the disease can come back. So our survival rates for this are very high.

      On the other hand, survival rates for lung cancer patients are a lot lower, only around 5% will survive for 10 years. We tend to get patients for radiotherapy that aren’t suitable for surgery; they may be too old or frail to receive general anaesthetic so they’re given radiotherapy instead. As the tumour is inside the lung it’s hard to give a high dose to the tumour without making the patient quite poorly. There are also lots of other organs around, such as your heart, that also make it difficult. So DONT SMOKE!

      Is that ok? If you want any more info just comment back 🙂

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