Can you cure my cancer?.

This Panorama special follows the staff and patients at Royal Marsden Institute for Cancer. Presenter Fergus Walsh and Professor Johann de Bono discuss a new generation of targeted drugs, and how they work compared to conventional chemotherapy. Dr Louis Chesler introduces a young patient with a rare and aggressive inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour, who discusses taking the nameless experimental drug LDK378. Walsh and Chesler debate investigatory testing on mice in relation to cancer research. Walsh interviews an 83-year-old patient with prostate cancer who is a super responder to the experimental hormone-blocking drug, Enzalutamide. The patient undergoes a bone scan. Walsh and de Bono discuss the success rate of new experimental cancer drugs and their potential to allow us to see cancer as a chronic illness manageable with medication. Walsh introduces a patient at Royal Marsden with ovarian cancer. Professor Kevin Harrington discusses tumours that are insensitive to standard chemotherapy drugs. Walsh introduces a patient with a currently-untreatable cancer that started in her trachea. Dr Amanda Swain discusses the role of gene sequencing in identifying and monitoring tumours. Harrington describes a unique drugs trial one of his patients is enrolled onto, in which mice are used as avatars to grow human tumours for analysis and drug testing. Harrington’s patient undergoes a lung biopsy. Harrington discusses the more challenging aspects of being an Oncologist, such as breaking bad news. Dr Udai Banerji consults a patient with level 4 lung cancer who is on a targeted therapy called BNM673. De Bono and Banerji discuss resistance by cancer cells to experimental drugs. A patient is introduced who is taking an experimental drug called Olaparib for patients whose cancer may be driven by inherited genetic faults. Walsh introduces a patient with malignant melanoma that has metastasised to the lung. Her consultant Dr James Larkin discusses immunotherapy using new drugs, such as ipilimumab and nobolumab, which harness the body’s inbuilt defences by enabling the immune system to attack cancer cells.