‘Young people don’t have to fear cancer death’

A world expert in cancer research is adamant that young people will not have to worry about dying from the disease when they are older.

Just over a year ago, Gerard Evan said he could confidently say his two children, aged 21 and 24, would never have to worry about dying from cancer in their lifetimes.

Asked yesterday had his view changed, the British professor of biochemistry at University of Cambridge said it had not.

“By the time they are in their 50s and 60s, a time when they would need to start worrying about cancer, it will not be the sort of death sentence that people think it is now,” said Prof Evan.

Advances made in preventative measures, surgery and therapies would make cancer a largely treatable disease in 30 to 40 years’ time.

“Over the last 10 to 15 years there has been an explosion, not just in new drugs, but in new ways of understanding and thinking about cancer,” said Prof Evan.

Cancer rates in Ireland are expected to increase over the next six years and it is estimated by 2020, 40,000 cases will be diagnosed each year.

However, Prof Evan said cancer patients who had just been given a life expectancy of five to 10 years could expect new drugs to be available by the time their current treatment began to wear out or fail.

Prof Evan said there was a lot of commonality between different cancers. However, he was not going to jump the gun and say research was going to eliminate cancer.

“The truth is we just don’t know, but if we continue in the same way then cancer will be no longer regarded as a death sentence but as a containable and treatable disease,” he said.

Prof Evan will be the main speaker at the Irish Cancer Society’s celebration of the research it funds in Dublin on Wednesday night.

The meeting is free to attend but places must be booked by emailing [e-mail] or on 01 231 6611.