Death Knell for cancer

BRITAIN’S top cancer specialist predicts that new medical miracles will end the death toll of most cancers within a generation.

New technology which is allowing scientists to identify the faulty genes in individual cancers New technology which is allowing scientists to identify the faulty genes in individual cancers

Professor Karol Sikora, former cancer adviser to the World Health Organisation, says death from the world’s most feared disease will be rare by 2025.

Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Express, he said an emerging revolution of drugs and technology will change the killer disease into “a stable chronic condition like diabetes that people can live with but not die of”.

Professor Sikora was speaking after last week’s news of a 25 per cent increase in breast cancer rates, meaning one in eight women will develop it.

He predicts that even this, now Britain’s most common form of cancer, will be under control within 14 years.

Almost two out of three patients are alive 10 years after diagnosis – double the rate for those diagnosed 40 years ago.

He said: “We are now at the dawn of this new era and we will see new treatments becoming more specific, less toxic and more effective.”

New technology which is allowing scientists to identify the faulty genes in individual cancers

Professor Sikora, medical director of CancerPartnersUK, a private network of cancer centres working with the NHS, said: “I have great hope. The next two decades will be very exciting. The concept of this disease as something to be feared, the idea of the big C, will go and cancer will be incidental to day-to-day living.

“Cancer will not necessarily be eradicated but it will not cause patients anxiety.”

There are about 500 new generation cancer drugs in the pipeline. Unlike chemotherapy, which kills all rapidly dividing cells including healthy cells, the new personalised cancer drugs will attack cancer cells to slow or arrest their growth.

This has been made possible with new technology which is allowing scientists to identify the faulty genes in individual cancers. Already there are drugs that can block certain forms of blood, lung, kidney and skin cancers in this way.

Another weapon will be new vaccines which mimic cancer cells to stir the body’s own immune system to attack the disease. The fi rst vaccine for prostate cancer was launched in the US earlier this year.

In a medical paper entitled Healthcare 2061, Professor Sikora predicts huge advances in the next 50 years.

For example, people will be fitted with microchip implants which feed information into a home television or computer linked to a healthcare provider, allowing cancer to be identified before it becomes deadly.

He believes advanced surgical and radiotherapy techniques will more effectively remove cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue.

“Robotic surgery carried out using tiny nanotechnology motors will destroy cancer tissue much more effectively and leave no scars while radiotherapy will eradicate rogue cells with pinpoint accuracy using sophisticated 3D reconstructions.”

The future of cancer care will be costly, he warns, rising from about £20,000 to £100,000 per patient per year by 2025.

He said: “Politicians will be faced with a real dilemma.

“The future technology of medicine is going to be a dream – it’s the economics that’s a nightmare"

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