Said Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr., of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, quoted in "A Cancer Trial’s Unexpected Result: Remission in Every Patient/The study was small, and experts say it needs to be replicated. But for 18 people with rectal cancer, the outcome led to 'happy tears'" (NYT).
The inspiration for the rectal cancer study came from a clinical trial Dr. Diaz led in 2017 that Merck, the drugmaker, funded... [T]he cancers all shared a gene mutation that prevented cells from repairing damage to DNA.... Patients in that trial took a Merck checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, for up to two years.... That led Dr. Cercek and Dr. Diaz to ask: What would happen if the drug were used much earlier in the course of disease, before the cancer had a chance to spread?...
Dr. Diaz began asking companies that made checkpoint inhibitors if they would sponsor a small trial. They turned him down, saying the trial was too risky. He and Dr. Cercek wanted to give the drug to patients who could be cured with standard treatments. What the researchers were proposing might end up allowing the cancers to grow beyond the point where they could be cured.
“It is very hard to alter the standard of care,” Dr. Diaz said. “The whole standard-of-care machinery wants to do the surgery.”
Finally, a small biotechnology firm, Tesaro, agreed to sponsor the study. Tesaro was bought by GlaxoSmithKline, and Dr. Diaz said he had to remind the larger company that they were doing the study — company executives had all but forgotten about the small trial....
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12 comments:
It’s called “the gold standard.”
When in doubt, cut it out.
I've made a habit of not reading any stories about promising cancer treatments. Further, I always ignore statements such as "person x is cancer free".
I want to believe but I’ve been burned in the past.
I'm the opposite of rrsafety. I read every story I come across about a cancer test showing well in early stages. And I quote Glenn Reynolds in this one: "Faster please".
is the original diagnosis confirmable with remnant earlier tissue for re-biopsy etc.?
I read this story and my first thought was, what are the implication of actually curing cancer.
The lifespan in wealthy nations would probably jump to 85 or 90 years.
What does that do to the economy? Housing? Insurance? Healthcare?
It would be a fucking mess for at least a generation.
I haven't read the study itself yet, but I'm kind of suspecting it will not turn out to be generalizable and may have been a very restricted study group.
Joe Smith makes an interesting point- there is now a cancer/industrial complex. What happens if a cure is found, especially a cheap, simple cure? Misinformation anyone?
Localized necrosis through deprivation of the offending cells. Abortion of a pathological cluster with scalpel precision.
When I read about it yesterday at Insty, I thought a lot of freshly dead colon cancer patients are probably bummed they didn't get to try it, but I see it's been tried only on usually-curable, early stage cancer. Kudos to the patients who took the risk; let's hope something comes of it. There are cancers (like pancreatic) for which early, in situ surgery is not always an option.
That's a very interesting study. It will be tried on a larger group. I don't know the ethics of a placebo group. Maybe some will refuse it.
It may well be limited to rectal or colon cancer. Low rectal cancer does not have any good alternative. Anal cancer was the same but a rise in incidence in gay men allowed an alternative to be found.
So, they've finally found a cure for cancer. Too bad civilization is ending, it could have been very useful.
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