AceShowbiz - Shannen Doherty hopes she can "squeeze out another three to five years" to allow cancer research to progress. The 52-year-old actress is currently battling stage four cancer but believes that if she can stay alive in the near future, medical advancements will help her to eventually beat the disease.

Speaking on her podcast "Let's Be Clear", she said, "I always talk about the fact that we just need to squeeze out another three to five years, and then there's going to be T-cell therapy or there's going to be this. There's going to be a lot more options that will give another five years. Then in those five years, there's a whole other group of options, and eventually there's going to be a cure."

Shannen's oncologist Dr. Lawrence Piro, agreed, saying, "I always say that it's important to think of each therapy as a horse, and in a horse race, you want to ride every horse as long as it rides, and then you ride the next horse as much as possible… you hope you make it a few laps then there’s altogether another new set of horses to ride, to make the race that much longer."

Shannen replied, "I'm riding those horses so I get to the fresh set of horses, and I'm trying to get the one I'm on right now to last for as long as humanly possible."

Shannen was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and went in to remission in 2017. However, the disease returned as stage four cancer in 2019.