The War on Cancer

Every day someone is affected by cancer. How close are we to finding a cure?

FOX’s Alex Hein reports:

This is Housecall for Health.

With advancements in nearly all areas of medicine, one field garners much fear among patients: Cancer.

FOX News’ Dr. Manny Alvarez spoke to Dr. David Agus, author of ‘The Lucky Years’ about recent developments:

(Dr. Manny) “Are we winning the war on cancer?”

(Dr. Agus) “No, not even close. We’re doing better, but I have patients who die every week, and I’m sure you do too, from this horrible disease. So there are really two big advances that have happened in the last couple of years, and they’re big. They’re not curing it, so we’re not winning, but they are prolonging and decreasing some of the pain and suffering. One is what we call ‘personalized medicine’ or molecularly targeted therapy. That is, in any cancer patient, I can, literally overnight, sequence the DNA of their cancer and identify an on-switch and give them one of 30 or 40 pills that are on the market now to turn off that ‘on-switch.’ And that works, many times we can have dramatic responses in patients.”

For more on this story, check foxnewshealth.com.

Housecall for Health, I’m Alex Hein, FOX News.