I think this is unfair - obviously each type of cancer has unique properties but the general ontology, mode of operation and treatment options have enough overlap that it - in a single word - describes what an illness is in general.
“Cancer” is a very wide classification. It’s similar to classify the illness as “caused by bacteria” or “caused by virus”.
It’s not very useful to know only that you have a disease that is caused by a virus. It could be a common flu, melease, ebola, herpes, hepatitis, hiv, ... http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#mediaviewer/Archivo:Viral.... Each one has a very different treatment and prognosis.
Some cancer would kill you in a month and some will kill you in 100 years (if you don’t die from other cause), some cancers are easy to operate, some are easy targets to chemotherapy, some for hormone therapy, some for radiation, ... A cancer diagnosis is a bad new, but it’s a very wide range of bad.
Also a new “cure” will probably be useful in a very few specific cases, and not useful in a general case like a broad spectrum antibiotic, that is useful against a lot of kind of bacteria.
