The Big C": Why cancer is no longer a death sentence
A few decades back, receiving a diagnosis of cancer used to mean being handed a death sentence. In the 1960s, a lesser understanding of the disease caused an old fear that cancer is contagious to resurface following an increase in the number of kids in the US state of Illinois getting leukaemia. People there worried a "cancer virus" was responsible for the "epidemic". Quite similar to the Covid-19 pandemic, at the time, those who came in close contact with sufferers would spray surfaces with disinfectant and be cautious about not sharing cutlery with them. Towards the 1970s, people often compared a diagnosis of cancer with a 50-50 chance of survival. The survivors were often subjected to blanket therapies which hit the whole body hard while trying to attack mutations. Fortunately, cancer is much more understood now. The field of oncology is no longer the same as it was 25 years back, said Professor Tony Mok, chairman of the department o f clinical oncology...