Word: cancerous
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...technology will never be a cure-all. Accidents and plagues won't disappear. The AIDS epidemic is so entrenched in Africa and parts of Asia that it could overshadow much of the 21st century. Nor will everyone be able to afford the latest treatments for cancer or Alzheimer's disease. For millions of people alive today, though, the ability to monitor their health more closely and start treatments at the earliest stages of disease means that many may live long enough to enjoy the blessings of the 22nd century...
...data with molecular microcomputers and broadcast the results to a mainframe (implanted under your skin, perhaps), where the data can be analyzed for signs of disease. Nanomachines could then be sent to scour the arteries clean of dangerous plaque buildup, or aid the immune system in mopping up stray cancer cells, or even, a la Fantastic Voyage, vaporize blood clots with tiny lasers...
...good looking. It is also a perfectly understandable question, given that half a million Americans will die this year of a disorder that is often discussed in terms that make it seem less like a disease than an implacable enemy. What tuberculosis was to the 19th century, cancer is to the 20th: an insidious, malevolent force that frightens people beyond all reason--far more than, say, diabetes or high blood pressure...
...problem is, the "cure" for cancer is not going to show up anytime soon--almost certainly not in the next decade. In fact, there may never be a single cure, one drug that will bring every cancer patient back to glowing good health, in part because every type of cancer, from brain to breast to bowel, is different...
...good news: during the next 10 years, doctors will be given tools for detecting the earliest stages of many cancers--in some cases when they are only a few cells strong--and suppressing them before they have a chance to progress to malignancy. Beyond that, nobody can make predictions with any accuracy, but there is reason to hope that within the next 25 years new drugs will be able to ameliorate most if not all cancers and maybe even cure some of them. "We are in the midst of a complete and profound change in our development of cancer treatments...