Opinion: The cure for cancer is happening, one discovery, one partnership, one patient at a time

Hartford Courant  – Sunday, February 1, 2026
By Dr. Peter Yu

Dr. Peter Yu is physician-in-chief of the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute and a nationally recognized medical oncologist and cancer leader. 

For the patient receiving a cancer diagnosis, it gets personal fast. Statistics measure improvement in cancer survival across the U.S., but we cure patients one at a time. Nevertheless, those cures add up and the steadily increasing number of patients living five years or longer, a surrogate for cure, are a measure of that progress.

This month, the American Cancer Society released a milestone report, noting that for the first time, seven out of 10 people with cancer in the United States will survive five years after their diagnosis. This marks an increase from 50% in the mid-1970s and 63% in the mid-1990s. Indeed, the 70% rate may be even higher, since it is based on data from 2015 to 2021, and advances in cancer care are occurring at an ever-faster pace. Overall cancer deaths are on track to decline by up to 2% each year for the next decade.

The probability that many of these five-year cancer survivors are cured is very high and for those that are alive but still in need of treatments, cancer has become a chronic disease awaiting further breakthroughs from innovations like immunotherapies and precision medicine guided by genomic sequencing.

Accelerating these advancements in oncology will require the world’s best minds working together. This is why dynamic partnerships, like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s (MSK) first-in-the-nation collaboration with Hartford HealthCare, have never been more essential. After 10 years of working together with MSK, the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute has become the first healthcare system in the U.S. to be designated as a MSK Care Partner.

By having our doctors, nurses and the whole medical team work in close partnership with their MSK counterparts, we will be able to speed the transfer and dissemination of knowledge about cancer breakthroughs.

Our strategic partnership will also enable more clinical trials to be available to our patients, further speeding advances in cancer to every patient, whether they live in Hartford or Bridgeport, suburban Manchester and Fairfield, or rural eastern and northwestern Connecticut.

Together, we will explore emerging technologies in health care and telemedicine that can provide a vastly better experience for cancer patients and their loved ones. Being a MSK Care Partner brings hope through innovation, as we advance more targeted therapies to treat the molecular abnormalities that drive each patient’s cancer, enabling more effective treatments while advancing long-term survival and improving quality of life.

I have been privileged to have a front-row seat at this amazing transformation in cancer care. In 2014 and 2015, as president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, I was intrigued by MSK’s bold vision to unite their world-class research and treatment expertise with Hartford HealthCare’s nimble, community-based care. A little over a decade later, we are proud to deliver on this promise of more personalized treatment, improved access and comprehensive support for patients and their families.

The cure for cancer is happening, one discovery, one partnership, one patient at a time.

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