The impact of future technology on cancer care

Globally cancer will increase greatly over the next 20 years because of ageing populations. Minimally invasive surgery will reduce the need for routine organ resection. The application of sophisticated computer systems to radiotherapy planning will allow the precise shaping of beam delivery conforming exactly to the shape of the tumour. The most promising advances will come from the rapidly increasing understanding of the molecular genetics of cancer. This will have considerable impact on prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment and lead to a golden age of drug discovery. Individual cancer risk assessment will provide messages tailored for individual prevention and have far-reaching public health consequences. Increased consumerism in medicine will produce increasingly informed and assertive patients seeking out novel therapies, bypassing traditional referral pathways through global information networks. This will bring new ethical and moral dilemmas. The cancer future will be created by the interaction of four complex factors: technological success, society's willingness to pay, future healthcare delivery systems and the financial mechanisms that underpin them.