• Question: what is the most dangerous incurable cancer or disease you can get that you know about

    Asked by phoebe to Carolyn, Peter, Richard, Sara, Siana on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Unwin

      Richard Unwin answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Probably the worst cancer to get is cancer of the pancreas – inly 1 out of every five people who get this will live for more than one year, and almost no one with this cancer will live for more than 5.

      Other diseases can kill you quicker, meningitis is very dangerous, for example.

      there’s a gross list of really bad, albeit rare diseases here, including an allergy to water and diarrhoea that can last for a year…
      http://listverse.com/2014/02/15/10-diseases-or-disorders-you-never-want-to-get/

    • Photo: Carolyn Nielsen

      Carolyn Nielsen answered on 18 Nov 2015:

      Hi Phoebe,

      I learned about a disease called melioidosis recently, which is caused by a bacteria (Burkholderia pseudomallei) common in northern Australia but especially in Thailand. Apparently even with treatment in hospital with antibiotics, once the bacteria get into the bloodstream the disease kills 80% of people who get infected.

      One of the examples more commonly used in infectious disease biology though is the group of viruses that cause haemorrhagic fevers, like ebola, that can cause huge amounts of internal bleeding. You probably have heard a lot about ebola in the news recently. Depending on how strong the virus is in each outbreak, ebola tends to kill 25-90% of people infected.

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