Had you asked in the 80s doctors, such as cancer looks like, you had drawn the picture of an ulcer. An evil mass that attacks with tentacles that must be cut out and eradicated. Cancer, this is the definitive death sentence. Today, researchers and Doctors are not black. Because it has done a lot of research.

at First, it looked as if the scientist could get the disease: The more thoroughly a physician researched, the more it seemed to evade them. There is no pattern, the picture seemed clearer, but blurrier. The term “cancer” was always vague, the molecular and cellular processes in diseased tissue were enormously diverse.

And even with the therapies, there were problems: What worked in the cancer patients as a therapy approach could be the next to be ineffective. The research into the tumors resulted, finally, in a statement, Olaf Ortmann, the President of the German cancer society, today, is only too happy to repeatedly: “The cancer.”

science editor Susanne Donner summarizes the latest approaches to treatment, including a Short analysis of the four methods against the cancer, and strategies for risk minimization.