Nonlinearity

Recently the stage IV forum on BCO has been a sad place to visit with several active members and young members' passing.   Reality of cancer is not pink and pretty. When I feel the reality weighing on me, I remember 3 things:

1.   Cancer does not grow linearly.  It grows exponentially.   That sucks

2.   Guess another thing that grows nonlinearly?   Computer power and affordability.  

3.   Our knowledge does not grow linearly.   In the last 10 years, MBC death rate (5 year) has been dropping around 1% a year, which comes to about 30%-50% 5 year survival rate currently.  This is bad.   BUT, we must not extrapolate into the next 10 years that 5-year survival rate will be 40%-60%.   It could be better than that, may be worse than that.   We need to harness nonlinear progress in technologies to battle this nonlinear disease called cancer.

This is an article from NEJM, chronicling progress in cancer research.  We do not have a cure, but we will get there.  Sooner or later.   With clinical trials and support for fundamental research and urgency in reforming the process of clinical trials, we will be there sooner rather than later.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1204479

Quote: "At its peak in the early 1980s, the NCI accounted for 23% of the budget of the NIH, yet it supported 53% of the research in molecular biology in the United States. And the results have been explosive"