Cancer is a disease of altered signaling and metabolism, causing uncontrolled division and survival of transformed cells. A host of molecules, factors, and conditions have been designated as underlying causes for the inception and progression of the disease. An enormous amount of data is available, system-wide interaction networks of the genes and proteins are generated over the years and have now reached up to a level of saturation, where we need to shift our focus to the more advanced and comprehensive methods and approaches of data analysis and visualization. Even with the availability of enormous literature on this one of the most pressing pathological conditions, a successful cure of the disease seems to be obscure. New treatment plans, like immunotherapy and precision medicine, are being employed for different studies. Nevertheless, their actual benefits to the patients would be known only after the evaluation of clinical data over the next few years. Therefore, we need to look at few fundamental challenges that should be addressed in more depth before we could devise better, rigorous, and comprehensive treatment plans and may successfully reach a possible cure of the disease. This article aims at bringing attention towards some fundamental gaps in our approach towards the disease that leads to failure in devising successful therapeutics.

癌症是一种信号传导和代谢改变的疾病，导致转化细胞不受控制的分裂和存活。许多分子、因素和条件已被指定为疾病发生和进展的根本原因。大量的数据可供使用，基因和蛋白质的全系统相互作用网络多年来已产生，现已达到饱和水平，我们需要将重点转向更先进、更全面的方法和途径数据分析和可视化。尽管有大量关于这一最紧迫的病理状况的文献，但成功治愈这种疾病似乎仍然很困难。新的治疗计划，如免疫疗法和精准医学，正在被用于不同的研究。然而，它们对患者的实际益处只有在评估未来几年的临床数据后才能知道。因此，我们需要审视一些应该更深入解决的根本挑战，然后才能制定更好、严格和全面的治疗计划，并成功治愈该疾病。本文旨在引起人们对我们治疗这种疾病的方法中一些根本性缺陷的关注，这些缺陷导致设计成功的治疗方法失败。