Can We Really Cure Cancer by 2020? Here's What Experts Think

Every year, cancer kills millions of people worldwide, and those who survive it are often left to live with the many side effects its treatment entails. Recent revelations by Israeli scientists offered a ray of hope to people living with the illness. Jerusalem Post reported that scientists from Israel belonging to Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd., have found a cure for cancer, which will be effective from day one. Chairman Dan Aridor stated that the treatment will last a duration of a few weeks, be cheaper than most treatments and present minimal side effects. The prospects of the treatment sound too good to be true, precisely why the larger medical community isn’t buying the claims. Cancer Cure Can Be a Reality by the End of This Year! MAJOR Medical Breakthrough Offers Hope to Patients Everywhere.

According to the researchers, the new drug MuTaTo deviates from most anti-cancer treatments, which attack a specific target in or on a cancer cell. But the targets themselves can mutate changing in form, and the drugs that are engineered to destroy them becomes ineffective.

MuTaTo uses a combination of peptides along with a strong peptide toxin, all of which can target cancer cells even if they try to mutate. The drug will attack three receptors at a time, because cancer cannot mutate three receptors at the same time. As promising as it sounds, the medical community is at large sceptical of the claims. Here's a List of 10 Anti-Cancer Vegetables You Should Never Forget to Eat.

An article in the Forbes titled “An Israeli Company Claims That They Will Have A Cure For Cancer In A Year. Don't Believe Them” says that the bold claims in the article are unsubstantiated and the company hasn’t furnished any evidence to support them. No scientific journal has published their findings.

The author states that the claims that cancers cannot mutate three receptors at a time are “categorically untrue.” Cancers can have multiple DNA mutations, that’s why multiple chemotherapy agents are used through several routes to prevent the chances of the receptors becoming resistant. Despite which, they get resistant to the treatments.

Even the American Cancer Society weighed in through a blog post, decrying the claims made by the Israeli company. It also challenged their claims, saying that the company’s approach isn’t something no one has tried before. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy CMO said that it will take some time for the treatment method to prove its benefits. But going by previous claims made by other “breakthrough” technologies, the chances of this one being successful are slim.

The blog post also states that using peptide technique to target cancer may not be that easy. As potential drugs, they have a “difficult road.” In addition to this, the claims are based on experiments made on mice.

Dr Ben Neel, Director Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University told The New York Post that cancer is a “multiple disease.” To say that they have found a cure for cancer is akin to saying there’s a single cure for infections.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 01, 2019 05:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).