Connection between cancer and genetics?

[UnderHis Wings]

I was looking at our family trees and everyone lived longer than my husband did(except one of his brothers who was a heavy drinker and smoker), but he had a grandmother who died of cancer. I expected him to live longer than he did. Maybe we always expect that. There have been so many advances in medicine. Why not a cure for cancer? Or a test that would tell yoou right away that you have cancer cells in your body?

[widower2]

UH, first keep in mind that cancer is not one disease but a term for many diseases which share similar characteristics. I wish we had something that worked for all of them too, but we're just not there yet. Frankly I think our medical field is a mess in a wide variety of ways, but that's for another day......and we do have tests for cancer that can identify cancer cells, but they aren't perfect, and more to the point, the people using them are much farther from perfect; sometimes they aren't diagnosed properly and missed, or we get "false positives" etc. It's all frustrating to me as well, believe me. The whole experience was quite an eye-opener to how badly the medical fields need improvement in so many ways. I think part of the problem is we rely TOO MUCH on technology and expect it to solve all our medical problems but it can't. We need doctors who are better at using and and oh btw doctors who give a damn, frankly. My experience was few do. Further the whole "corporate" attitude towards medicine isn't helping; hospitals are more worried about getting sued than they are in helping the patients, and we have nurses/hospice people who should be off flipping burgers somewhere vs watching over people who are sick and vulnerable. Hopefully that along with everything else will improve.......