How much money is spent on cancer research every year?

[nec209]

How much money is spent on cancer research every year? The last I hear is in the billions every year?

So why the slow down now? How much progress as been made in the past 5 to 10 years?

 

[CharonY]

Do you have any evidence that it is slowing down? Just to put it in perspective I here are the number of publications with cancer as the topic:

1980: 4,318

1990: 8,290

2000: 38,935

2010: 99,362

2015: 153,786

If anything our knowledge on the various forms of cancers have massively improved and we have a much higher appreciation of their complex biology. However, it also means that there is so much information out there that no single person has likely a comprehensive as well as in-depth knowledge of all the aspects. So it will be difficult to put the vast knowledge into proper perspective.

 

[Sensei]

42 minutes ago, nec209 said:

So why the slow down now? How much progress as been made in the past 5 to 10 years?

In each person with cancer, cancer is unique. Random mutation in random place of DNA chain. If you have two woman with breast cancers, the only common thing is placement in the body and general name.

You seem to be thinking or suggesting that it is illness like any other and there will be drug (vaccine?) which will cure them all..

Prevention is the way to limit cancer. Less smoking, less eating of unhealthy foods, less burning fossil fuels, less poluted environment will result in lower number of patients with various kinds of cancers. Diet containing antioxidants is also good idea.

If you want to decrease chance of getting cancer you should identify cancerogenic compounds around you and limit their direct and indirect usage.

[nec209]

 

That not really the big problem because if you look at this that is lot of money

How much money is spent on cancer research per year?

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-is-spent-on-cancer-research-per-year?share=1

That is 2012 stats that still lot of money.

Yet people are still dying today so how much progress really have been made in the past 5 to 10 years.

Looking at 2010 to 2020 really how much progress really been made.

 

Edited March 12, 2020 by nec209

[Dagl1]

23 minutes ago, nec209 said:

 

That not really the big problem because if you look at this that is lot of money

How much money is spent on cancer research per year?

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-is-spent-on-cancer-research-per-year?share=1

That is 2012 stats that still lot of money.

Yet people are still dying today so how much progress really have been made in the past 5 to 10 years.

Looking at 2010 to 2020 really how much progress really been made.

 

A lot, like a LOT of progress has been made. Our understanding increases a lot, some cancers are treatable while they weren't, others have higher recovery rates. We are also getting much better at characterising specific types of cancers which helps with treatment. New drugs have been developed, although they still have many side effects.

One thing to separate is the amount of progress versus the effects you see in hospitals; medicine (the parts patients get to see/feel the effects of) goes slowly since a lot has to be tested, retested, checked and tested.

On 3/7/2020 at 7:09 AM, Sensei said:

In each person with cancer, cancer is unique. Random mutation in random place of DNA chain. If you have two woman with breast cancers, the only common thing is placement in the body and general name.

DNA doesn't mutate completely randomly though, some regions are more prone to mutations (or less prone to successful repair) than others. In addition, many cancers do share similar mutations and the genes involved in a specific type of cancer are (generally, not always) part of specific pathways. 

On 3/7/2020 at 7:09 AM, Sensei said:

You seem to be thinking or suggesting that it is illness like any other and there will be drug (vaccine?) which will cure them all..

Although I am currently highly sceptical of both the mechanism and (therefore) the validity of this paper, the following paper does claim to have found a way of targeting and killing cancer cells specifically. But right now there is a need of this being reproduced and preferably tested in other conditions and then later (maybe, if everything seems promising, even when done by other groups) in humans. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-019-0578-8