Special report: Can we cure cancer?

For years it has seemed like science's unreachable goal. But leading Australian cancer specialists believe a cure — at least for some cancers — could be seen within our lifetime.

Within 50 years, cancer vaccines could be used to treat cancer and even to prevent the disease in certain situations, medical oncologist and Cancer Council CEO Professor Ian Olver told ninemsn.

That's because advances in the past decade in genetics and immunology mean scientists now have a much better understanding of the molecular machinery of cancer, which means they’ve got a better chance of curing it.

And sophisticated new treatments mean more people are likely to recover from cancers that were once considered untreatable.

"It's a very exciting time. We do expect to see rapid change over the next decade," Olver said.

Australia already has one of the highest cancer survival rates in the world. According to the Cancer Council, more than 60 percent of the 100,000 Australians likely to be diagnosed with cancer this year should be alive in five years, a 30 percent improvement from two decades ago.

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"Cancer is now not the death sentence that it potentially was in a majority of cases," said Leanne Warner, CEO of Cure Cancer Australia, a non-profit organisation that funds research grants for cancer researchers.

She said it's already the case that cancers once seen as killers — such as childhood leukemia and testicular cancer — are no longer viewed in this way. Childhood leukemia used to kill about 80 percent of kids with the disease. Today more than 80 percent survive.

Likewise, earlier prevention measures could mean some cancers are wiped out altogether.

For example, former Australian of the Year Ian Frazer's breakthrough vaccine against the human papilloma virus, a precursor to cervical cancer, has the potential to eradicate the second leading type of cancer among women.

But while Frazer's Australian-made vaccine could save millions of lives, its lessons don’t translate into developing an anti-cancer vaccine per se.

While all cancer is caused by mutating cells, there are more than 100 different types of cancer which stem from numerous causes. Some of those causes are environmental, some genetic — such as ionizing radiation, chemicals or even viruses. While cervical cancer is caused by a virus, other cancers are not.

This, along with the unpredictable nature of mutating cells, is what makes cancer so hard to cure.

So while there's unlikely to be a single cure for cancer anytime soon, the Cancer Council’s Professor Olver says finding a cure for one could lead to finding a cure for another.

"We're going to need to do it cancer by cancer," he said.

In the meantime, treatments are improving so rapidly, we may soon view cancer less as a certain killer and more like a chronic disease, like diabetes or heart disease, he said.

Thanks to genetic research, sophisticated cancer drugs are being developed that work more efficiently, by directly target faulty genes and proteins responsible for various kinds of cancers. Herceptin, one of the better-known "miracle" drugs, blocks a faulty gene pathway found in 30 percent of breast cancers.

These new super drugs are a big change from traditional chemotherapy, which used a blanket approach of killing off all dividing cells, hoping to shrink tumours in the process, then allowing healthy cells to recover.

"Rather than carpet bombing everything we're using smart bombs now," Olver said.

Indeed, oncologists may take a page from AIDS treatment and use a cocktail of drugs with different targets to outsmart tumors that have already begun to spread.

As well, the focus is likely to increasingly shift towards prevention. The World Health Organisation estimates a third of all cancers are preventable.

"With all the excitement around treatment, the simple fact is that very simple lifestyle changes can impact on you getting cancer in the first place," Olver said.

"A third of cancer deaths could be prevented by those simple lifestyle changes that address tobacco, obesity and sun protection."

LATEST AUSSIE RESEARCH:

1. Australian researchers at CSIRO, Flinders University and Australian healthcare company Clinical Genomics have developed a gene expression biomarker, which can differentiate pre-cancerous and cancerous growths from normal ones, and could lead to a new diagnostic tool for detecting bowel cancer before it actually develops.
2. Melbourne research has unmasked killer stem cells that cause a deadly leukaemia to return again and again in children. By identifying rogue stem cells immune to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, a team from the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the University of Melbourne is investigating a handful of drugs that it hopes could stop the cancer from recurring.
3. In a world first, researchers at the University of Melbourne identified two genetic variants associated with breast cancer, which also influenced the density of breast tissue. The discovery of a link between breast cancer and dense breast tissue could eventually help identify women at higher risk of breast cancer, leading to better prevention.
4. Queensland scientists are working to detect ovarian cancer by analysing cancer cells from a simple blood test. The test, being trialled by scientists from the Mater Medical Research Institute in Queensland, focuses on a protein generated by a particular gene, which is highly activated in ovarian cancer cells.
5. Professor Timothy Hughes at the University of Adelaide has made breakthroughs towards refining the way anti-cancer drugs are used to maximise their effectiveness. He's been at the forefront of developing sophisticated targeted therapies for Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia that are now being more widely applied to other targeted therapies for other cancers.

CANCER FACTS (Source: Cancer Council):

1. Cancer is the second-biggest cause of death in Australia, following heart disease.
2. It affects one in two average Australians under the age of 85.
3. The disease is expected to kill more than 43,000 people this year.
4. Almost 12,000 more people die each year from cancer than 30 years ago, due mainly to population growth and ageing, however the death rate (number of deaths per 100,000 people) has fallen by nearly 15 percent.
5. The incidence of cancer remains higher among men than women, largely due to the higher number of smoking-related cancers, melanoma and mesothelioma, related to higher smoking rates and greater exposure to sun and asbestos.
6. Prostate cancer the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men, followed by colorectal cancer, lung cancer and melanoma.
7. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, followed by colorectal, melanoma and lung cancer.