Name: 【TED】Adam de la Zerda: We can start winning the war against cancer (We can start winning the war against cancer | Adam de la Zerda)
Uploaded: 2016-12-14T15:05:49.000Z
Duration: 12 min 43 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This is what the US Congress and the National Cancer Institute declared

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't buy that.

and I don't think anyone here will question that.

why we're not winning this war against cancer

I'm going to start by sharing with you a story about a good friend of mine.

and a few years ago, Ehud was diagnosed with brain cancer.

he was diagnosed with one of the most deadly forms of brain cancer.

that the doctors told him that they only have 12 months,

and during those 12 months, they have to find a treatment.

and if they cannot find a cure, he will die.

is that there are tons of different treatments to choose from,

that in order for them to tell if a treatment is even working or not,

well, that takes them about three months or so.

Well, Ehud is now going into his first treatment,

and during that first treatment, just a few days into that treatment,

I'm meeting with him, and he tells me, "Adam, I think this is working.

I think we really lucked out here. Something is happening."

And I ask him, "Really? How do you know that, Ehud?"

And he says, "Well, I feel so terrible inside.

Well, unfortunately, three months later, we got the news, it didn't work.

And so Ehud goes into his second treatment.

"It feels so bad, something's gotta be working there."

And then three months later, again we get bad news.

Ehud is going into his third treatment, and then his fourth treatment.

Now, when someone really close to you is going through such a huge struggle,

A lot of things are going through your head.

I was just outraged that, how come this is the best that we can offer?

And I started looking more and more into this.

As it turns out, this is not just the best that doctors could offer Ehud.

It's not just the best doctors could offer patients with brain cancer generally.

We're actually not doing that well all across the board with cancer.

and I'm sure some of you have seen those statistics before.

This is going to show you here how many patients actually died of cancer,

in this case females in the United States,

You'll notice that there aren't that many things that have changed.

You'll see lung cancer, for example, on the rise.

And you'll also see that, for example, stomach cancer

once used to be one of the biggest killers of all cancers,

Now, why is that? Anyone knows, by the way?

Why is it that humanity is no longer struck by stomach cancer?

What was the huge, huge medical technology breakthrough

that came to our world that saved humanity from stomach cancer?

Was it maybe a new drug, or a better diagnostic?

and the fact that we're no longer eating spoiled meats.

So the best thing that happened to us so far

is the fact that the refrigerator was invented.

and everything that's been done in cancer research.

Look, there is like 50-plus years of good cancer research

that discovered major, major things that taught us about cancer.

we have a lot of heavy lifting to still do ahead of us.

Again, I will argue that the primary reason why this is the case,

why we have not done that remarkably well,

And this is where medical imaging comes in.

And so to give you a sense of the best medical imaging

that's offered today to brain cancer patients,

or actually generally to all cancer patients,

is the CT scan will show you where the bones are,

and the PET scan will show you where tumors are.

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【TED】Adam de la Zerda: We can start winning the war against cancer (We can start winning the war against cancer | Adam de la Zerda)

process

essentially

nasty

completely