We Are Getting Better at Treating Cancer
[Thursday, September 19, 2019] In the last 25 years, cancer related deaths have reduced by 27%, there are more new drugs to treat cancer approved by the FDA than any other disease, there are well known ways to prevent 2 out of 5 cancers, and strides have been made in the diagnosis of cancer much earlier than previously possible due to genetic testing. These are the facts from the latest report from the America Association of Cancer Research (AACR) that highlights and summarizes the broad achievements made in the last to decades in treating, managing and diagnosing cancers. The report credits five major developments in the last two decades for the progress in cancer treatment. There have been remarkable improvement in the understanding the underlying mechanisms for the occurrence of cancer, the identification of several factors that increase the likelihood of one developing cancer which could be prevented simply by avoiding the causative factors, better diagnostics that can catch the disease early on and help pinpoint specific treatments to a given type of cancer, increased availability of multi-dimensional treatment options, and prevalence of patient-centric holistic treatment approaches over limited focused treatments. These developments point to a healthy trend where the government agencies like NIH, FDA and CDC create new science and provide incentives to the industry to generate ways to treat, prevent and diagnose cancers; and this is expected to stay. |
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