Cancer is a difficult biological problem. It is probably the most difficult biological problem I can think of, being both microscopic and inscrutable but also sharing features of population-scale problems. We use cancer as an analogy, but what is an analogy for cancer, apart from humanity itself?
It is easy to forget that most cancers develop through an evolutionary process that takes 15 - 20 years. During this time they are under constant selection pressure by the immune system.
It is not surprising therefore, that to turn up at the very end of the process when a patient has a civillization of heterogenous, optimised cancer growing in them that trying to eradicate the whole thing with a single approach, however elegant, is likely to fail. Cancer therapies in general provide an incremental benefit.
< 5% of therapies make it out of the lab into something a doctor can use on a patient who needs it.
It is easy to forget that most cancers develop through an evolutionary process that takes 15 - 20 years. During this time they are under constant selection pressure by the immune system.
It is not surprising therefore, that to turn up at the very end of the process when a patient has a civillization of heterogenous, optimised cancer growing in them that trying to eradicate the whole thing with a single approach, however elegant, is likely to fail. Cancer therapies in general provide an incremental benefit.
< 5% of therapies make it out of the lab into something a doctor can use on a patient who needs it.