My husband was working closely with one of the radiation oncologists at the Mayo Clinic. They were discussing promising research that could form the backbone of clinical research studies. It currently takes at least 5 years to get a study from promising lab results to human clinicals...for leading researchers at the Mayo Clinic, one of the biggest research programs. One of the big hurdles for cancer research is ethics. You have to be able to prove the person will not lose their opportunity for a known treatment by participating in your study. That's why they often limit it to inoperable cancers. Because if you could have cured it by cutting it out, and instead you did this, and the cancer you didn't get later metastasized and killed the person...