We Haven't Won The War On Cancer But We Are Making Progress

A drop of 23% in cancer death rates in twenty-five years may be painfully slow and incremental, but all the money and time spent trying to combat cancer is slowly but surely paying off.  And, even incremental progress is reducing one of the leading causes of death is a big deal.

The cancer death rate has dropped by 23 percent since 1991, with some even larger gains in types of cancer that used to be extremely lethal.

Via Vox.

The article goes on to note that the alternatives of cure or death have been replaced by a large number of people who have cancer that is controlled who can leave reasonably normal lives for many years while managing it (the experience of both my late father and of a colleague who recently died of cancer). The story of HIV/AIDS is similar.

One new approach to cancer therapies seeks to use DNA testing of the cancer cells to develop customized vaccines to kill them.