Although most malignant tumors are curable if diagnosed early, cancer is and will continue to be one of the leading causes of death. But there are more and more weapons available to combat it. Even if a “cure” is not found for everyone – especially since the mechanisms of action of each type and subtype of tumor are so variable – there will be significant gains in survival for patients, making it an increasingly chronic disease.

“Before there were only two or three lines of treatment, today there are five or six lines of treatment and we will have more. A person may even die from cancer, but in a distant time horizon, similar to what is happening now with heart failure,” says Jose Carlos Machado. “Nowadays, science is producing a lot of knowledge, and the pharmaceutical industry is able to test it at a speed that was previously unimaginable,” says Dr., a specialist in molecular genetics and director of Ipatimup Diagnostics (Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology). “And the numbers show the progress already made:” By 2040, the incidence of cancer will increase by 50%, but since the 1990s there has been a decrease in the death rate by 2% per year. In other words, there will be more and more cancer, but fewer people will die from it.

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