Cancer

Cancer has been recognized as a disease for millennia: one of the oldest descriptions comes from an Egyptian papyrus describing breast tumours, and dated to 1500 BC or earlier. By the Second World War a drug was finally shown to work - albeit modestly - against cancer. Much has been done since to understand the disease; earlier detection, better surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and drugs means that more patients live longer. Yet in 2007, the World Health Organisation estimates that the runaway cell division that causes cancer kills more than 7 million people each year, accounting for around 12.5% of all deaths worldwide. Here Nature keeps track of our fight against the disease.