[nhstanley]

"Cancer" is a word that describes any disease that is the result of uncontrolled growth of your own cells. However, there are so many types of cancer cells and the treatment for each so different that saying we've "cured cancer" is a prime reason why the public doesn't understand or trust these miracle breakthroughs.

That being said, these PD-1 inhibitors are a huge breakthrough for any type of cancer that uses this mechanism to evade the immune system. One of the hallmarks of cancer cell growth is their ability to evade the immune system. PD-1 (programmed cell death 1) is a receptor on immune cells like T cells that tells these immune cells to "stand down"/go inactive. Some types of cancer secrete molecules that activate this receptor, inhibiting the immune cells. Drugs like Nivolumab block these receptors, keeping the immune cells active, allowing them to attack cancer cells when they encounter them.

Metastisis (cancer cells spreading around the body) is what kills cancer patients, and drug strategies that can keep this from happening are key to keeping people alive. (Re-)activating the immune system against the cancer cells is a great strategy that's had some recent breakthroughs. Another recent breakthrough method, called CAR-T cell therapy (chimeric antigen receptor t-cells) also activates the immune system against cancer. In that case, they take immune cells out of the cancer patients body, use gene therapy to inject genetic material needed by the cells to recognize cancer cells, then grow those cell and re-inject them back to the body. This has been wildly successful in certain types of cancer, like certain leukemias and lymphomas, and may be successful for other types. Here is a nice article that covers these general strategies for those interested: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/04/20/immune-...

There have been a lot of breakthroughs recently. If we keep pushing like this we'll someday soon be fortunate enough to be legitimately surprised when a friend or family member dies of cancer, and many other diseases.