Cancer is tens (perhaps thousands) of substantially different diseases. And yet, we group them under a common name &quot;cancer&quot; because they do have commonalities, and while so far treatments focus on very specific cancers, it is not unthinkable that we WILL actually find a common treatment.<p>The naked mole rat has apparently solved the cancer problem[0] - and while it is not perfectly understood, it is definitely NOT by mitigating hundreds of different cancer factors - the prevailing theory is that it detects and destroys &quot;overcrowding&quot;, regardless of cause. We might be able to do something like that for humans, although right now it is still in the realm of science fiction.<p>The most promising venue to the best of my knowledge is the Warburg Effect[1]; unfortunately, it has been promising and not really delivering for 80 years now, although DCA[2], which showed promise and is undergoing clinical tests as a cancer treatment, is at least conceptually related - malfunctioning mitochondria and fermentation-in-lieu-of-glycolysis seem to be two sides of a similar coin to my (untrained, ignorant) eyes.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Naked_mole-rat#Resistance_to_cancer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Naked_mole-rat#Resistance_to_c...</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Warburg_effect" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Warburg_effect</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dichloroacetic_acid#Cancer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dichloroacetic_acid#Cancer</a>