Is There a Cure for Cancer ?

The name CANCER brings to our minds innumerable questions, and most importantly the picture of a painful and dreaded end. I being an oncologist, view these from a different perspective.
Cancer, as we all know, is a disease that arises from uncontrolled proliferation of normal cells in the body. The causes are innumerable starting from carcinogenic insults ( drugs, habits, occupation, radiation in hazardous doses etc.), genetic alterations, intracellular events and still unknown etiology. Whatever the cause is the end result is the development of cancer.
So what is the answer for cancer ? Traditionally, there are three modalities of treatment - radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. While radiation and surgery are local forms of treatment, chemotherapy, on the other hand, is a systemic form of therapy in which the entire human body is subjected to the chemotherapeutic drugs with the understanding that it will look after the local as well as the systemic disease.
Time has come now to think beyond these tradtional methods of treatment. In the recent years much progress has been in this regard. Targeted therapy is one such innovation in which drugs are being marketed and are being researched in a phased manner to target the cancer cells specifically. There are millions of target - both intracellular and extracellular which are being targeted. Millions and millions of dollars are being spent on these research with the end result that these drugs ( targeted therapy) are prohibitively expensive.
Now the time has come to think of an universal target, which if targeted can specifically destroy the cancer cells with minimal toxicity to the normal human cells.