I was lucky enough to be seen by MD Anderson doctors for my rare type of cancer. Within hours of the first painless infusion, the large tumors I could feel and see from the outside were completely gone. Hours, truly.
Now, the rest of the chemo wasn't as easy as the first. But the miracles of modern medicine, thanks to dedicated researchers and medical teams, truly blew my mind and that was a decade ago.
I was told I was one of 42 people ever that MD Anderson had seen with this cancer, yet they were able to tailor a treatment. I think Vox is right about the progress being amazing, and I hope it continues.
My dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma 2 years ago. His bone marrow transplant failed (frequent first line of defense) and he just finished CAR-T therapy a couple months ago. The initial side effects from the treatment were _bad_, but everything is looking good right now. CAR-T is really mindbogglingly insane cyberpunk stuff.
not "war on cancer" and not "we" winning. It's pharma finding ways how to profit from rare treatment successes of few rare disease types. Majority, and by majority i mean over 80%, of patients and cancer types are still treated with bogstandard chemo+radio+surgery. Individualized treatment plans using checkpoint inhibitor combinations, biotech therapies, etc are for few select individuals with A LOT of money.
how do i know? i work in precision oncology for a decade plus
Great that treatment options are improving. But there are still serious bottlenecks in medicine. It seems to be a universal truth that getting a CT/MRI comes with a long wait time. General Practitioners often wait too long to order imaging as a result, and they are often unwilling to even consider cancer in younger people.
We need better (earlier) detection and faster access to it.
Four years ago today, I was diagnosed with primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, a form of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Three years ago on May 26, I was declared in complete remission at MD Anderson, a month after a CAR T-cell infusion. I am still in complete remission after multiple PET scans and CT scans.
The specific therapy I received (Yescarta) was approved by the FDA for refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma on October 2017. It was the second such therapy approved by the FDA, and the second that year, after Kymriah in August.
Feels a bit odd to be saved by a class of therapy more than three decades younger than I am.
My brother in law just got diagnosed with Glioblastoma yesterday. He’s only 31. Sadly I don’t think we are winning fast enough for him or people in his situation.
"Secretly," but perhaps in the sense that most are not exclusive enough to have the coverage, disposable income and proximity to specialists. A close family member of mine was diagnosed with stomach cancer at a very young age. I looked into getting an endoscopy and it took more than a month to see my primary for the referral and about seven months out for the endoscopy. The hospital says there a chance insurance will cover nothing.
ps: apparently cancer drug resistance is linked with tumor adaptability which relies on iron and copper, and these researchers leverage this as a weapon against itself, very clever
Great news. Meanwhile, diabetes type 1 remains an incurable disease. I feel like humanity failed people with diabetes type 1. You could argue it's easier to destroy cells (while curing cancer) than create them (as it would be required in curing diabetes type 1), but it nonetheless feels surreal we still don't have a cure despite all of the technological progress. While it's getting worse and the number of affected people grows every year.
CAR-T and closely related immunotherapies are the definitive breakthrough. It will continue to get more and more effective against more and more types of cancers. The research issues surrounding them now are about cost and about how to manage the potentially fatal complications from using it against certain situations, especially developed solid tumors.
The chart understates it. Since 1990 when the death rate started falling, median age in the US rose from 32.9 to 38.5 years and vast majority of cancers are age-correlated. So we are speaking of at least 2x age-corrected decline, if not more.
I’ve always felt like cancer is one big war, but in reality, it’s more like countless small battles happening all at once. I have a friend who went through this — he had a very rare form of cancer and had to do multiple rounds of chemo, and each round felt like starting over again because what worked once didn’t always work again.
Now, seeing that cancers once thought to be nearly hopeless have five-year survival rates going up, it’s really impressive. I just hope we’ll keep seeing more good news like this in the future.
I wish my cousin (triple-negative breast) and mother-in-law (ovarian) knew we were "winning the war". I'm excited about new immunotherapy and genetic treatments, and I think the tide might be turning, but winning the war is a ways off.
This is misleading. A rise or fall in one kind disease doesn't mean anything out of context. Most people die of something so a fall in one disease may just as well mean that people die from something else instead. In this case, the drop in cancer seems to be the inverse of the rise in "neuropsychiatric conditions and drug use disorders". You can't die of cancer, when you are already dead from fentanyl overdose.
One of the few instances where I think GenAI will lead to a cure. So much research done, yet not enough people in the world to fully focus on finding the needles in the haystacks
It’s pretty amazing. I’m a survivor, so far, and it’s amazing.
As an aside, Godwins law apparently needs a corollary name for trump. Almost every thread on here anymore brings him up. I understand people are emotional about it, but it sure is getting old.
Humans are certainly not winning the war on cancer. Not even close. Now, even children perish from cancer in America. Things are getting worse, not better. When you get cancer, you'll better understand the hopelessness.
The death rate goes down but the number of cancers increases. Cancer is extremely painful even if you survive.
Cancer treatment should be like taking antibiotics, a week of pain and it is over. We should activate the natural inmune defences instead of extremely invasive chemotherapy.
We’re secretly winning the war on cancer
(vox.com)437 points by lr0 8 June 2025 | 209 comments
Comments
Now, the rest of the chemo wasn't as easy as the first. But the miracles of modern medicine, thanks to dedicated researchers and medical teams, truly blew my mind and that was a decade ago.
I was told I was one of 42 people ever that MD Anderson had seen with this cancer, yet they were able to tailor a treatment. I think Vox is right about the progress being amazing, and I hope it continues.
“for one in six deaths around the world, killing nearly 10 million people a year globally and over 600,000 people a year in the US.”
A lot of reduced deaths come from less smoking and early detection. We will eventually get there but we need a lot more research.
Get a colonoscopy at 45. We are seeing a big increase in younger people.
https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/colorectal-cancer-awaren...
how do i know? i work in precision oncology for a decade plus
We need better (earlier) detection and faster access to it.
Three years ago on May 26, I was declared in complete remission at MD Anderson, a month after a CAR T-cell infusion. I am still in complete remission after multiple PET scans and CT scans.
The specific therapy I received (Yescarta) was approved by the FDA for refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma on October 2017. It was the second such therapy approved by the FDA, and the second that year, after Kymriah in August.
Feels a bit odd to be saved by a class of therapy more than three decades younger than I am.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axicabtagene_ciloleucel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAR_T_cell
also, recently ferroptosis made the news as general mechanism to kill metastases https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08974-4
seems like a new path too, the more the better :)
ps: apparently cancer drug resistance is linked with tumor adaptability which relies on iron and copper, and these researchers leverage this as a weapon against itself, very clever
Now, seeing that cancers once thought to be nearly hopeless have five-year survival rates going up, it’s really impressive. I just hope we’ll keep seeing more good news like this in the future.
I'm sorry.
As an aside, Godwins law apparently needs a corollary name for trump. Almost every thread on here anymore brings him up. I understand people are emotional about it, but it sure is getting old.
https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-fo...
The death rate goes down but the number of cancers increases. Cancer is extremely painful even if you survive.
Cancer treatment should be like taking antibiotics, a week of pain and it is over. We should activate the natural inmune defences instead of extremely invasive chemotherapy.
We are far from that.
https://x.com/MakisMD/status/1845353670407233817
https://x.com/skymeds_store/status/1919695848222687548
https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-fo...