Any Oncologist making this asinine statement should revert to general practice. It is akin to a NASA program manager in the 1960's saying "I don't know if we can really make it to the Moon."
“Curing cancer ‘not a realistic goal,’ cancer scientists say”
That’s a helluva defeatest attitude to have when you are in a war.
I wouldn’t go that far. Curing cancer may not be possible in all cases.
To “cure” cancer you must kill all cancerous cells from body, if even a small number survive it will return.
If however you can treat the system, and keep the cancer from growing, or from shutting down your natural systems, one may live a normal live expectancy even though they have cancerous cells in their body.
I don’t see anything wrong with this doctors conjecture.
If the option is we must remove every cancerous cell from you, and we are not able or sure how to do that... vs we can possibly find a way for you to live a normal life expectancy even if you do have cancer because we can keep the cancer in check, but never fully remove it all... that’s not a bad course of action.
The standard for “Cured” may not be realistically be able to be met in all cases.