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Comment by Craiggybear | Hacker News Reader

Because, like AI, molecular biology is complicated and there are no quick hacks.

Some things are meant to take time and be right. First time.

Survival rates are spectacularly better than they were fifteen or twenty years ago and they are getting better all the time.

Also there is no one type of lung cancer, brain tumour or bladder or bowel cancer either. There are many different types. Half the battle is identifying (and successfully treating) the right sort.

I still think there will be cancer in fifty years time. But we won't have to die from it. We may never eradicate it though, because it is a tough, complex bio-engineering problem, closely allied to programmed cell death and immortality. That's another tough nut to crack for the same reasons, inexorably intertwined as they are.

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I think it's also important to note that our understanding of molecular biology while impressive is still so incomplete and there is much to learn.

This is a kind of cool Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_molecular_biology

But the discipline isn't even 100 years old yet, and really only in the last couple of decades have we been able to have technology to really take advantage of isolation. We have learned so much about modern medicine, but have so much more to go.

Cancer survival rates are a mixed bag with many barely moving at all. The statistics below are based on that for Victoria, Australia (population of about 5.5m).

5 year survival rates for the following cancers has barely changed at all since 1985: Pancreatic, Larynx, Lung, Mesothelioma, Ovarian, Cervix, Central Nervous System.

Although the following cancers have seen much better improvement:

Pharynx, Colorectal, Stomach, Oesophagus, Gallbladder, Breast, Prostate, Kidney, Thyroid, HL, NHL, MM, ALL (basically all the blood cancers).

Overall the 5 year survival rates for cancers have improved from 47% to 64% now. Definitely better, but unfortunately not "spectacularly better".

Of course, these are survival rates, so do not reflect improvements in public health that prevent people from getting cancer (e.g. survival rates for lung cancer have have actually decreased, but less people are acquiring it due to reductions in smoking meaning deaths have reduced by about 50%).

http://www.cancervic.org.au/downloads/cec/cancer-in-vic/CCV-...

Do you have a reference for survival rates? Note that there are many confounding factors - lung cancer incidence has dropped a lot although lung cancer itself remains intractable to average cancer survival rates may have improved.

Small cell, granuloma, take your pick. The data is available world-wide. The fact is that lung cancer is one from which there is never a good prognosis regardless of type. People can expect 4-5 years on average (although I know people who have gone past ten and have a good quality of life).

It also is one where heredity and genetics plays an enormous role (as opposed to purely environmental conditions).

Like I said, molecular biology is something we've only just noticed far less got a handle on.

Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

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