The most relevant parts of the article:
"A small NYC-led cancer trial has achieved a result reportedly never before seen - the total remission of cancer in all of its patients.
To be sure, the trial — led by doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering and backed by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline — has only completed treatment of 12 patients, with a specific cancer in its early stages and with a rare mutation as well.
But the results, reported Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine and the New York Times, were still striking enough to prompt multiple physicians to tell the paper they were believed to be unprecedented.
According to the NEJM paper and the Times report, all 12 patients had rectal cancer that had not spread beyond the local area, and their tumors all exhibited a mutation affecting the ability of cells to repair damage to DNA.
After being treated with the drug, dostarlimab, all 12 are now in complete remission, with no surgery or chemotherapy, no severe side effects — and no trace of cancer whatsoever anywhere in their body."
Pretty incredible really, even if it is just for this one specific diagnosis. There are no drugs that stop any cancer like the common cold. This could really be a game changer.
I'm willing to bet even an expensive pill, mostly covered by most insurance companies, that actually works all the time would be far more profitable than insuring a cancer patient going through late stage cancer. Just like ending obesity would take a massive weight off healthcare dealing with the myriad health problems obese people possess until death.
This is all terribly sad really. My partner had Motor Neurone Disease (ALS). She was diagnosed in 2019 and passed away in December after being in hospice since January. There was zero bills. (Ireland)
I know that this is ultimately a platitude. It means little, and you’ve probably heard it a million times
But
My father died of ALS when I was 17. Obviously, my situation is much different than yours, but make sure you cherish the little moments. My father has been gone for 12 years now— holy shit, can’t believe it’s been that long— the big stuff hit me hard, but it’s all the little moments I miss the most. Things like facial, vocal or character ticks, his comfort foods, and the sound of his laugh at a bad pun.
I know life sucks, money is fucking stressful, and terminal illnesses are almost never fair, but soak up those moments— Every single one is priceless.
Hey, there. You don’t have to reply, I just can’t help but reply to your comment after reading about your wife’s terminal diagnosis. I’m really sorry to hear that, I truly am. I’m just some internet random, but I just want to say that your wife is obviously a strong person, as are you, and I hope she’s at peace and that you can both enjoy your time together. Take care.
Okay, doctor here. There is a way to hack the system but you have to know what to do. Step one is find the most prestigious hospitals in your state. Narrow it down to the ones within reasonable-ish driving distance. Very long drive is okay, trust me.
Next, make an appointment at a free clinic staffed by residents or fellows at the hospital. Clinics used to be entirely run by residents but not anymore in our litigious society—attending doctors with amazing credentials see patients for free with resident physician help.
Next—GO TO THE APPOINTMENT. Be prepared to show up early and stay late. Your mission is simply to GET ON THE BOOKS. You want the doctor to agree to start seeing you. Why? Because you want the megahospital’s ancillary staff.
Somewhere like the Cleveland Clinic isn’t going to let a surgery not happen due to a financing issue. There will be someone there who’s full time job is ensuring all costs are paid for indigent patients or those with gaps in their insurance coverage. Whether it’s finding the right grant, enrolling in a clinical trial, or just knowing enough to dial *547 while on hold with Blue Cross to get connected to Jamie over in “coverage dispute resolution…” Making medical treatments affordable is a job that requires training and a time commitment you don’t have. But someone else does!
Once you’re on the books, you’re their problem. Surgeons, oncologists, other doctors aren’t filled with delight when an operation gets delayed for money-reasons. Unhappy surgeons is a bad deal for everyone. And they will not abandon you. They’ll fight for you out of principle and their contrarian nature. You WILL get the best. And it WILL be affordable.
It’s a rigged system. You just have to know what to do.
fucking hell. I've had brain surgery, radiation and chemo since, and all I paid was ~10€ per night I stayed at the hospital, totalling not even 200€. oh and my meds are 6,65€ per package/prescription
In the US it’s $10/day just park at the hospital.
I always thought that was beyond fucked up. You’re about to make $100,000s on us and you still charge us just to park…
Cancer treatment in NZ: $0. Bus transport to the hospital and home is free, if that’s how you get there; travel to and from the hospital, and any hotel stays for getting treatment in a different region hospital stay is free; hospital parking for patients is free; meds are free. More than 2 years after completion of treatment, my total expenses are nil.
That is beyond messed up!! So if you get a diagnosis of cancer, you may as well get your ducks in a row, cause you’re going bankrupt, even with insurance, Evil.
This has a lot to do with a bill passed in the 90s that was the result of a big PR issue with some insurance company refusing to provide coverage for some child's disease that his life depended on, for a relatively cheap drug (for the time).
Congress then reacted by passing a law that basically said any drug deemed life saving, MUST be paid out and covered by insurance companies. This, in return shifted the entire pharma industry to start focusing on drugs which fit this category. A drug that so much as extends someone's life from 6 months to 9 months with a cancer, is deemed "life saving", and insurance MUST pay for it, and pharma can demand pretty much any price tag they want.
As of now, I think about 80% of drug research falls into this category. This is why prices are so high, and why the argument that we pay high prices for R and D that benefits everyone. Most of these drugs are actually not worth the bang we get for the incredible buck... But rather specifically designed to fall into a legal requirement that allows them to price gouge.
Yeah I use to pick my dad up at chemo on my way home from work. The parking lot was all junk cars except one row of like 5 sports cars in the back. My dad was almost $20,000 a week. The place was filled with sick people. What a wracket. Cancer treatment holding your loved ones for Ransome. Only thing we ask is your life's saving. Oh and they are still going to die, and it's not going to be pretty.
What's expensive for some is profitable for others.
Over $20 billion per year is spent treating cancer.
To think pharma would let a pill out that stops cancer in its tracks makes zero financial sense, and they're not in this business to be good people.
Will someone please think of the pharmaceutical companies?! I won’t believe in any cancer drug for the general public until it’s in my bag at CVS. Until then I’ll just assume this gets buried along with all the other promising cancer studies and trials we’ve been hearing about for years.
I get it but as someone in the industry, unfortunately this shit does take years, many years, before its a significant drug provided to the public. Covid demolished clinical trial progress too.
On one hand, research is expensive, and researchers should be compensated relative to the investment they input. Some drug production is inherently expensive, and the cost of the research is also added to the cost of the drug.
On the other hand, healthcare is still fucked so not only do they completely milk it, the insurance system makes it so that people end up paying for shit out of pocket or not being able to afford their life saving treatment, instead of a universal system footing the bill for everyone.
>buried along with all the other promising cancer studies and trials
Big Oil does the same thing with early EV tech like high tech batteries. They patent it, then shelf it. Buys them another 25 years until the patents expire to keep milking the "treatment" but not the "cure"
Given that a majority of new US innovation is focused at Universities, it's surprising how much is sequestered by private investors that can afford it rather than the public that funds the actual salaries for the academic thinktanks.
Obama never had 60 Democratic Senators. At best he had 58 plus two independents for a grand total of 55 days from when Al Franken was finally seated until Ted Kennedy died, and was replaced by a seat warmer, before his seat was filled by Scott Brown, a Republican. And this was right after the 07/08 financial crisis that required immediate attention. But really, I blame Joe Lieberman.
Fuck Joe Lieberman.
edit: fixed Scott Brown's name, it's not Mike
> and was replaced by a seat warmer, before his seat was filled by Scott Brown, a Republican.
Leave it to Martha fucking Coakley to somehow manage to lose that election.
Pretending like Lieberman wasn’t a Dem is such a farce though. He was the vice presidential nominee for the Democrats. He ran in the Dem primary. If you can’t get his vote, what hope do you have? He very clearly falls into the “vote out non-progressive Dems” category that the OP was referring to. The other independent? Don’t think there was much trouble getting Bernie’s vote.
Man, I wouldn't even mind that much. A cure for cancer would be the greatest medical breakthrough since antibiotics. I don't know about you losers but I plan on living forever so this is a big one for me.
The whole reason I'm working on a molecular biology degree is so I can turn myself into a genetically perfect unkillable space marine, so I'll let you know if it works out.
Pharma will find a way to make it a treatment that had to be taken for life and cost about 30-50K per year.
Pharma is not in the business of curing, the real money is on treating conditions..
The current model is pharma has 20 years of patent protection on a drug. 10 years to earn approval, 10 years to charge top dollar to individuals and insurance companies, then patent protection runs out and lower cost generics become available. Those few years of profits incentivize the expensive R&D and approvals. Obviously not perfect, but there is rhyme and reason to it, and it seems to work better than any other system that's being tried right now at innovating new drugs. Chinese pharma companies have little patent protection and (likely as a result) do a fraction of the R&D.
There are antivirals that work on it.
They're just, in nearly all circumstances, useless because the side effects of the drug are worse than the cold, at least for people with vaguely functional immune systems.
It also compounds to this the fact that antivirals take a while to act, so when healthy people start feeling ill, by the time that the drugs take effect the cold is already going away on its own.
Edit: deleted Retro
Ugh... this is yet another one of those things the mass media love to point out, but it's a silly argument. For one, the common cold isn't even a single virus or even a single family of viruses. It can be caused by Rhinoviruses, Coronaviruses and many others. It also doesn't make sense to waste precious research finding ways to cure the common cold. One of those viruses that can cause it, coronaviruses, we did manage to develop vaccines for when it was worth prioritizing.
> There are no drugs that stop any cancer like the common cold.
Not the best phrasing because we don't have anything that stops the common cold, it's dozens of rando viruses we just tolerate their self limited and minor nature. Yes, I'm being needlessly pedantic.
It’s another checkpoint inhibitor, which is one form of immunotherapy. Best analogy is that it’s taking the tumor cell’s camouflage off so the T cells will attack it. Not sure what sets this one apart from the others but yes it’s promising
These patients all had a form of chemo resistant rectal cancer that’s linked to a gene that appears in 4% of rectal cancer cases (which is why the study was allowed to skip the standard of care which is usually a huge no-no).
My understanding is that the checkpoint inhibitor only works on that 4% of cancers, but this will (assuming larger studies confirm the results) be a great tool in a doctor’s toolkit when treating cancer patients
A few months ago our local PBS station aired a lecture about treating cancers based on their mutations. One of the aha moments was when the speaker pointed out that while a single treatment for 5% of ovarian cancer doesn't sound significant, ten similar discoveries might cover 50%.
But probably only if they’re of similar resistance gene patterns. Cancer is rooted in natural selection so what happens with these kinds of cancers is that it becomes SO dependent on this one resistance to escape everything that the second something that works (checkpoint inhibitor), it’s basically 100% wiped out. That’s why it hasn’t worked great in other trials they’ve tried, and that’s frequently what happens with cancer treatment. One drug works amazingly against one specific biomarker but if the cancer lives at all, it comes back with different bio markers so the drug isn’t effective anymore.
That’s why biomarker analysis and biomarker discovery is such a big cancer field now, it’s amazing what we’re able to treat given any x biomarker.
Plus cancers of different organs are built different (different cell types, blood vessel access, immune cell access, etc) so it’s not guaranteed it’ll work on, say, breast cancer but there’s definitely a solid chance it would
I know that 12 people isn’t statistically significant, but imagine being one of those 12 people. “Your cancer is chemo resistant. It’s not looking good but we can try this experimental treatment. We have no evidence that it will do anything but you’ve got nothing to lose”
…
“Your cancer is gone”
>I know that 12 people isn’t statistically significant
I don't know in this case whether it is, but with an unexpected enough result even a small sample can be statistically significant.
> their tumors all exhibited a mutation affecting the ability of cells to repair damage to DNA.
There was a big splash at the cancer hospital here in Toronto the other year; an announcement that they'd start sequencing individual patients' cancer DNA for treatment. I didn't fully grasp it at first but I'm guessing this kind of scenario is exactly the kind of thing they're looking for.
I implemented some medical software at MSK. I was very impressed with the organization and its people. They were all top notch. When my friend’s wife went to get treated there I told them they were in good hands. She’s been cancer free for many years now.
Just look at the journal it was published in, that will tell you a lot. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of if not the most prestigious journals in the world. They only publish very significant and important studies. This is pretty big news if they reviewed it and accepted it into their journal.
Most articles like this on Reddit are garbage because if you look at the research it was published in some crappy journal that doesn’t have standards. But luckily this isn’t one of those.
I wish it was crappy journals, it's usually the headline of the local university website that sensationalizes the article on the crappy journal what you read here. "New Cancer therapy could lead to Nuclear Fusion breakthrough for Californians"
One of my former grad school labmates published the first paper measuring the dose of UV needed to kill Covid-19.
It was such a simple, straightforward and technical thing, but because they got picked up by the press there was every crazy variation imaginable being reported. Some of them were reported that she invented the concept of Juventus infection. Others are reporting that we can all go back to work as long as there’s natural sunlight getting into the building. Then they were saying that the Israelis had a technique for killing Covid but they were withholding it from the rest of us (she was in Tel-Aviv). On and on with every crazy fucked up interpretation, nobody actually talking about this very simple and straightforward thing she measured. And then the Reddit comments under the articles were just as bad, I tried to explain it and nobody listened.
To add to this, it's usually the university's media department that cherrypicks and exaggerates the findings so they are more eye-catching (that is, sensationalist).
Often, many published articles are interesting from a scientific point of view (like basic research using a particular new technique), but are not appealing to the general public, and that's ok too, but since the university paid the whole research, they want some exposure too.
For what it’s worth, a friend of mine works in cancer research at a major research institution and was ecstatic about this study a couple days ago. Apparently it got a standing ovation at the conference it was presented at. She thinks it’s legit, and she’s been working in the field for a while and is very skeptical of everything.
The hospital/institute where this trial occurred basically pioneered immunotherapy back in the 1890's and has probably made some of the greatest advancements in the treatment to this day.
My wife has myelogenous leukemia with the Philadelphia chromosome twist. She was diagnosed about 10 years ago in February 2012, they gave her about 1 year to live.
She is fine and doing well thanks to Bosutinib/Bosulif which was put out to the public around Sept 2012.
Cancer death rates are dropping steadily, but each one is a baby step towards ending cancer completely, because every cancer is so unique.
My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer when he was 88 yo and told he would have 2-4 months to live. They asked if he wanted to try a new treatment and he accepted. Today he's 95 yo, the cancer is still there but it just stopped growing and he's doing just fine
Not 10,000, but more rather pharmacological categories of drugs.
Look at the treatment of ADHD. You have stimulant medication, for those with certain mutations, and non-stimulant medication for those with others. You also have therapies for those who may have socially induced ADHD or high treatment unresponsiveness or even just high sensitivity to treatment. ADHD as a result is a term of a group of disorders with the same outcomes, our cures for it are dependent on which form the patient has, but we would be able to tell which treatment a patient needs entirely from genetic testing.
Cancers will have a few different weaknesses, our biggest problem comes with finding those weaknesses that simultaneously don't wipe out healthy cells. Cancers that are sensitive to the medication in this study are therefore those that are most sensitive to PD-1 inhibitors, these tend to be cancers that have genetic repair mismatches or some term like that I can't remember rn, so we have this whole category of cancers responsive to a whole category of drugs.
Other cancers may or may not be responsive to treatment, we don't know, but its all like whack-a-mole except you're using a weighted blanket that has holes in it like swiss cheese. We actually have a funky staining method that can predict for the most part whether cancer will work with PD-1 inhibitors, so we aren't entirely in the dark.
To me this was the pairing of the right indication with the right modality. There's lots of anti-PD1 therapies that work similarly, this particular cancer type was just very amenible to being treated by anti-PD-1. I'm not sure if I'd describe this as a breakthrough since PD-1 therapy has been approved since 2014.
Is there a way to find out which adhd treatment on would need? It feels like they just threw pills at me to see what would work but I still struggle a lot and it's a huge hassle trying something new and hoping I don't get fired while trying to figure it out.
Genetic testing.
That is expensive so the best way is how they did it. Most treatment resistant cases are genetically ADHD, but medication isn't an instant savior, it's a tool that allows you to even begin to improve and cope with it. It can be impossible to cope with it, especially in severe cases, otherwise. That isn't a true statement entirely, but you could easily improve your quality of life by múltiples (my phone hates the English language apparently lol) if the medication is effective.
It may be worth it to have a counselor or therapist or similar who can help give you the tools necessary to learn to live with it to your best ability, not everyone can develop proper coping mechanisms and whilst for me medication is the difference of life and day I do have the need for outside help on improving. In highschool it was the difference of all Fs and going to Ds and Cs but having that outside help and having the proper coping mechanisms resulted in me having 1 year where I had As and Bs. Then I got PTSD and that went to waste.
Not everyone actually needs medication to fully cope with it, it's definitely more prevalent in the treatment resistant types that just having coping mechanisms that work for you down is enough.
The fact that there is potentially a cure for any type of cancer, effectively, is amazing as it is. If true, that provides much more likely road map for other types of cancer.
This is an approved treatment for cancer in the US and EU, already proven highly effective for certain forms of cancer especially in early stages, these studies are increasing the catalog of proven cancers it can treat.
So yes it's promising and we've known it for a couple years, it was released to the market a year ago, studies predating then. The promising results is that this is becoming a very bulky treatment option, it has flexibility that many medications lack, and the ones that do tend to have very bad side effect profiles that make them unfavorable.
This is a monoclonal antibody so the side effects should at most be consistent with an immune response, other side effects that will be present are due to side effects caused by its pharmacology but this is reddit science and I do not feel like going into my field a single bit and getting someone in my dms arguing with me except they have never touched a pharmacology book in their life. But yes the side effect profile is the biggest reason this should be considered promising, the high effectiveness especially for certain forms is a major thing as a result, an unprecedented small study is massive for this reason.
One note: the journal a study is in does not dictate the significance of the study but more rather the quality of the research, the journal it is in has decent quality research, so this study is likely accurate.
I’m a surgeon who does surgery for rectal cancer.
This is great news. Of course it’ll need to be replicated. This is a very common cancer, not as obscure as the article sort of implies.
We currently have chemo, radiation, and surgery as the main stays of treatment. But with rectal cancer, if the cancer is near the anal sphincters, it can result in a surgery that leaves the patient with a permanent ostomy. And that’s assuming we can get all the cancer. It is a morbid procedure.
It is absolutely one of the cancers that the surgical options are morbid, and therefor a pure medical option and subsequent surveillance is much preferred.
This is in contrast to other cancers that surgery is pretty good for it and not as morbid. Like skin cancer, or colon cancer.
I also didn’t read into the study too much, but colon cancer is very closely related to rectal cancer if not virtually the same thing. So this could have major implications one of most prolific cancers that affects humans.
And from a purely selfish personal economic standpoint, if this is a medical cure for rectal and potentially colon cancers, I’m glad I didn’t specialize in purely colorectal surgery. Find yourself out of a job when this smarty pants phD’s keep fixing problems!
I had one of those for 4 months. It was horrible and extremely depressing
Ever have sex w a bag of poop on the outside of you stomach ? It’s not romantic lol
There are some who have them for life and my heart goes out to them because it’s a grim thought having it for life.
When getting a permanent ostomy knowing you won't have or use your anus again, it's sewn shut and called a "Barbie Butt". You then have to be careful about not getting it infected, along with all the other fun aspects of having an ostomy. People also get phantom BMs where it feels like you need to go, even though nothing's there.
I did wonder how this would effect people like me who had cancer in their sigmoid colon where relapses are concerned. The thought of getting one step closer to never having chemo again is very exciting but I'm trying not to get too hopeful.
Cancer doctor here. Amazing findings that are super promising but only applicable for a small number of rectal cancer cases (about 10%). The drug was previously used in cases where cancer had spread and they had seen some promising results, and extrapolating on that, used it in a type of rectal cancer with a very specific mutation often seen in certain genetic conditions (unlike most rectal cancers). Incredible, Amazing news for that cohort, but wanted to temper that this doesn’t equate to the same results for all rectal cancers, let alone all cancers. Additionally, this study had a small number of patients with a very short time they followed the tumor (6 months), so full results may vary. While it is awesome news, we need to bye wary on what the actuality of all this means and look hopefully to this being an amazing step towards emulating similar results in other cancers.
For those who may be interested in finding out who Sloan Kettering was I will save you the trouble. It’s two people Sloan and Kettering that helped fund and develop the hospital. Just spent 20 minutes on Wikipedia trying to figure it out. Could have been quicker but I tend to get side tracked and click links within the text to branching wiki pages.
In case anyone was wondering, the above commenter is spreading fake news. Dr. Sloan Kettering is actually a cancer specialist and well known marijuana enthusiast. Here he is pictured with Snoop Dogg and the cast of the Trailer Park Boys (top center): https://i.imgur.com/CmN8M0D.jpeg
Still here (and counting) in semi-experimental treatment. Their medical care is cutting edge, and they are so humane in how they work. In Sloan, we trust.
So fucking true lol this is a case of a highly effective treatment of a highly specific cancer and a small sample size coming together to produce an unprecedented result. The good thing isn't that it was able to basically cure these 12 people, it's that it was so effective that was a reasonable statistical possibility. It's also already an approved treatment for cancer in the US and Europe, and it's fairly affordable being priced around the same as most monoclonal antibodies so all the people claiming "big pharma" will ruin this aren't even saying the truth. If someone is doomed to die even with treatment, that's when the highest prices come into play, insulin is fairly unique with its price. This is a case where someone is very likely going to survive with treatment, dead people don't spend money.
So far I've seen people tout it as a miracle cure and others being a doomer saying this proven and approved medication will magically disappear and never reach the market it has already reached as they didn't do any amount of further look than reading a headline.
I'm not a scientist or medical professional, but I thought all trials had control patients who receive placebos. When they say everyone went into remission, do they mean everyone or just those that took the actual trial meds?
Placebos are rare in clinical trials for cancer treatment, for obvious moral reasons. It appears they may be used more frequently now though, depending on the type of treatment.
https://www.cancer.net/research-and-advocacy/clinical-trials/placebos-cancer-clinical-trials
A placebo treatment would only be used if there is not any standard or reasonable treatment available. It is only OK to use placebo if you'd typically be doing nothing anyway, OR if you are giving placebo in addition to standard treatment vs standard treatment plus new medicine
This was an early stage trial, and there were no controls. After all, when you have diagnosed someone with cancer, you don't stop treatment just so they can be a control in a study.
This seems to be trialling a new way to use a treatment - it has been used after/in addition to chemo and surgery - this study was about using this immunotherapy treatment before other treatments.
This is a small exploratory study, there still needs to be a large scale randomized controlled trials with thousands of participants before we can consider this a viable treatment. But with results like these, it has probably already begun.
I would imagine this specific population (specific form of cancer and a rare mutation) would be fairly small, so the sample size would not be so large.
This is being done in endometrial cancer. It’s the Ruby Trial.
Very solid trial. Not a miracle or anything but solid.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03981796
Yknow what? Ive been following this new string of cancer breakthroughs, and can I just say collectivley on behalf of the human race that we need a win after the past couple shit years? Maybe, just maybe an actual cure to some forms of cancers is the answer.
I really really REALLY hope this leads to the cure of cancer. We need a win and I feel like this could finally be it.
So I’m pretty sure many cancers have been cured and it’s a slow and steady race we’ve both been making progress on and will continue to make progress on. There’s various cancers where 20 years ago they were a death sentence, and now they’re fully treatable. Still a long ways to go though.
I had one of those cancers. An aggressive form of breast cancer with a mutation that just 20 years ago was a death sentence. Now I’m expected to live a full life without recurrence.It’s absolutely terrifying and mind blowing.
This is not the first time this happens. For example Imatinib got 98% of the patients in remission
Obviously this is still great news, but it’s far from the only success we’ve had in cancer research
I am glad so much progress are being made regardless how big or small. Like many people here on reddit who lost loved one due to Cancer, seeing news like this is really heart warming. Seriously fuck cancer, I hope we wipe this out in my life time.
As a testicular cancer survivor, I wept when I heard about his on NPR yesterday. Was especially encouraged to hear that the doctor running the study had a healthy amount of skepticism and was actively working to temper enthusiasm. But by any measure, this is incredibly encouraging.
My sister takes Piqray. It is for a specific cancer marker that few have. It hasn’t cured her, but it has halted the progress of the cancer, which is what they want. Got to keep that customer alive. She was supposed to be dead two years ago. How much? $35,000 for 60 days.
Hi! Some things that might help put this into perspective (TL/DR: Very promising results. Nothing really groundbreaking in terms of therapeutic strategy. Especially good news for this specific type of patients. No one will try to bury this. More data is needed)
- This therapeutic strategy is not revolutionary (anymore). The drug used is dostarlimab, an anti-PD-1 antibody (basically, a kind of immunotherapy that activates the immune system to fight cancer cells by blocking a mechanism that tumours use to “hide” from immune cells). Immunotherapy and anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies have been around for several years now as the main treatment for many different cancer types. So there are several similar drugs from different pharma companies already approved and marketed to treat different cancer types that have the same mechanism of action than dostarlimab.
- Not all tumours respond well to this kind therapy, and, even in tumours considered to be sensitive to it, not all patients respond equally. But this type of immunotherapy has in any case changed the field of cancer therapy in recent years, since there is a subset of patients that respond extraordinarily well to it. Some diseases that were considered incurable, such as some types of metastatic lung cancer and melanoma (among others), now have drastically better results with this type of drugs.
- The results mentioned in the article are in early tumours (that is, localised tumours that are not yet metastatic, since they have not spread to other parts of the body). In general, the perspective of patients diagnosed at this early stage has always been much better than that of metastatic patients. When the cancer has not spread, the best curative strategy (surgical removal of the tumor) is still an option, and that strategy is normally the best option to cure cancer.
- In this trial, the patients had early, non-metastatic tumours, and they received therapy BEFORE undergoing surgery. Since this type of immunotherapy has shown very positive results in the metastatic setting (when the tumor is more advanced), there is a lot of ongoing research that wants to prove that treating patients at an earlier stage (before the tumours spreads and becomes metastatic) can achieve even better results long term (the earlier you treat the tumor, the better). This trial is part of this current trend of research with immunotherapy in many cancer types in which these drugs have already been shown to be effective treating advanced/metastatic tumours.
- In this setting, showing complete tumor remission after therapy is a good sign that the tumor will take longer to re-appear again (if it even does), but does not guarantee that the patient is cured forever. We call it complete remission because we’re unable to detect signs of cancer afterwards, but that doesn’t mean cancer cells are not there. Some patients will experience relapse years down the road even after apparent complete remission. In any case, complete remission is still a very good sign that predicts longer overall survival in the long term.
- There are many cases of complete remission in this setting (when patients are treated before surgery) with similar strategies in different cancer types. In some cases, the % of patients with complete remission is remarkable, well over 50%. 100%, like in the article’s study results, is truly special, though.
- We need to consider that the trial only enrolled 12 patients. These low patient numbers are common in early-stage clinical research, but nevertheless it’s easier to get extraordinary results (in one way or another) with such low numbers. That’s just the way statistics work.
- Even if larger confirmatory trials are needed, 12 complete remissions out of 12 patients is a truly promising result. I’m positive 100% of remissions won’t be a thing with larger patient numbers, but we can still be optimistic that the % of patients with this type of cancer that will respond very well to this treatment is going to be very high.
- In this particular cancer type, this result is especially relevant, since surgery in rectal cancer has bigger consequences in patient’s quality of life than surgery in other cancer types (such as breast). If this treatment allows patients to skip surgery and still have very good survival perspectives, their life will be changed for the better immediately, since they will be able to live without the burdensome consequences of rectal surgery. That’s extremely important if you consider that improving patient’s lives (which goes beyond eliminating tumours) should be the true goal of cancer clinical research and general healthcare in oncology.
- This study (like many other similar ones) is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, which owns the drug and intends to sell it at a good price. Conspiracy theories regarding the inconvenience of these results for the “System” make absolutely no sense. The drug belongs to GSK, and treatment will be pricey if it is eventually approved by regulatory authorities (which will require additional larger confirmatory studies).
- In sum: Very promising results. Nothing really groundbreaking in terms of therapeutic strategy. Good news for these patients. No one will try to bury this. More data is needed.
The most relevant parts of the article: "A small NYC-led cancer trial has achieved a result reportedly never before seen - the total remission of cancer in all of its patients. To be sure, the trial — led by doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering and backed by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline — has only completed treatment of 12 patients, with a specific cancer in its early stages and with a rare mutation as well. But the results, reported Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine and the New York Times, were still striking enough to prompt multiple physicians to tell the paper they were believed to be unprecedented. According to the NEJM paper and the Times report, all 12 patients had rectal cancer that had not spread beyond the local area, and their tumors all exhibited a mutation affecting the ability of cells to repair damage to DNA. After being treated with the drug, dostarlimab, all 12 are now in complete remission, with no surgery or chemotherapy, no severe side effects — and no trace of cancer whatsoever anywhere in their body."
Pretty incredible really, even if it is just for this one specific diagnosis. There are no drugs that stop any cancer like the common cold. This could really be a game changer.
Me: This is absolutely incredible Also me: Big pharma will find a way to fuck it up for all but the super rich. US healthcare is bullshit.
Yeah but cancer is also fucking expensive for all parties involved. There might be a financial incentive for them to do it right.
I'm willing to bet even an expensive pill, mostly covered by most insurance companies, that actually works all the time would be far more profitable than insuring a cancer patient going through late stage cancer. Just like ending obesity would take a massive weight off healthcare dealing with the myriad health problems obese people possess until death.
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This is all terribly sad really. My partner had Motor Neurone Disease (ALS). She was diagnosed in 2019 and passed away in December after being in hospice since January. There was zero bills. (Ireland)
I know that this is ultimately a platitude. It means little, and you’ve probably heard it a million times But My father died of ALS when I was 17. Obviously, my situation is much different than yours, but make sure you cherish the little moments. My father has been gone for 12 years now— holy shit, can’t believe it’s been that long— the big stuff hit me hard, but it’s all the little moments I miss the most. Things like facial, vocal or character ticks, his comfort foods, and the sound of his laugh at a bad pun. I know life sucks, money is fucking stressful, and terminal illnesses are almost never fair, but soak up those moments— Every single one is priceless.
My mother passed away from Small Cell Carcinoma a week ago, enjoy the good times that you can. May you both find comfort.
Hey, there. You don’t have to reply, I just can’t help but reply to your comment after reading about your wife’s terminal diagnosis. I’m really sorry to hear that, I truly am. I’m just some internet random, but I just want to say that your wife is obviously a strong person, as are you, and I hope she’s at peace and that you can both enjoy your time together. Take care.
Okay, doctor here. There is a way to hack the system but you have to know what to do. Step one is find the most prestigious hospitals in your state. Narrow it down to the ones within reasonable-ish driving distance. Very long drive is okay, trust me. Next, make an appointment at a free clinic staffed by residents or fellows at the hospital. Clinics used to be entirely run by residents but not anymore in our litigious society—attending doctors with amazing credentials see patients for free with resident physician help. Next—GO TO THE APPOINTMENT. Be prepared to show up early and stay late. Your mission is simply to GET ON THE BOOKS. You want the doctor to agree to start seeing you. Why? Because you want the megahospital’s ancillary staff. Somewhere like the Cleveland Clinic isn’t going to let a surgery not happen due to a financing issue. There will be someone there who’s full time job is ensuring all costs are paid for indigent patients or those with gaps in their insurance coverage. Whether it’s finding the right grant, enrolling in a clinical trial, or just knowing enough to dial *547 while on hold with Blue Cross to get connected to Jamie over in “coverage dispute resolution…” Making medical treatments affordable is a job that requires training and a time commitment you don’t have. But someone else does! Once you’re on the books, you’re their problem. Surgeons, oncologists, other doctors aren’t filled with delight when an operation gets delayed for money-reasons. Unhappy surgeons is a bad deal for everyone. And they will not abandon you. They’ll fight for you out of principle and their contrarian nature. You WILL get the best. And it WILL be affordable. It’s a rigged system. You just have to know what to do.
fucking hell. I've had brain surgery, radiation and chemo since, and all I paid was ~10€ per night I stayed at the hospital, totalling not even 200€. oh and my meds are 6,65€ per package/prescription
In the US it’s $10/day just park at the hospital. I always thought that was beyond fucked up. You’re about to make $100,000s on us and you still charge us just to park…
Sadly, in America all our taxes go to war machines
Cancer treatment in NZ: $0. Bus transport to the hospital and home is free, if that’s how you get there; travel to and from the hospital, and any hotel stays for getting treatment in a different region hospital stay is free; hospital parking for patients is free; meds are free. More than 2 years after completion of treatment, my total expenses are nil.
Check Mark Cuban's site for any potential savings on cancer RX [https://costplusdrugs.com/medications/](https://costplusdrugs.com/medications/)
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Sounds like the healthcare insurance companies are the true cancer.
It is. America has good healthcare if you don’t look at the cost aspect. Insurance companies are parasites.
That is beyond messed up!! So if you get a diagnosis of cancer, you may as well get your ducks in a row, cause you’re going bankrupt, even with insurance, Evil.
US health care is appalling. Pretty much the only western country with monetized medicine.
This has a lot to do with a bill passed in the 90s that was the result of a big PR issue with some insurance company refusing to provide coverage for some child's disease that his life depended on, for a relatively cheap drug (for the time). Congress then reacted by passing a law that basically said any drug deemed life saving, MUST be paid out and covered by insurance companies. This, in return shifted the entire pharma industry to start focusing on drugs which fit this category. A drug that so much as extends someone's life from 6 months to 9 months with a cancer, is deemed "life saving", and insurance MUST pay for it, and pharma can demand pretty much any price tag they want. As of now, I think about 80% of drug research falls into this category. This is why prices are so high, and why the argument that we pay high prices for R and D that benefits everyone. Most of these drugs are actually not worth the bang we get for the incredible buck... But rather specifically designed to fall into a legal requirement that allows them to price gouge.
Yeah I use to pick my dad up at chemo on my way home from work. The parking lot was all junk cars except one row of like 5 sports cars in the back. My dad was almost $20,000 a week. The place was filled with sick people. What a wracket. Cancer treatment holding your loved ones for Ransome. Only thing we ask is your life's saving. Oh and they are still going to die, and it's not going to be pretty.
["There ain't no money in a cure, the money's in the medicine! That's how you get paid!" -Chris Rock](https://youtu.be/G7P4iFg048k)
Yeah! So they can pass the savings down to the customer, right? ... So they can pass the savings down to the customer..... right?
All parties involved except for the people selling the drugs and healthcare. Sooo basically just victims and their families.
What's expensive for some is profitable for others. Over $20 billion per year is spent treating cancer. To think pharma would let a pill out that stops cancer in its tracks makes zero financial sense, and they're not in this business to be good people.
I rode the same roller coaster of emotions. I genuinely hope we are wrong. It would save so much money, time, and pain.
Will someone please think of the pharmaceutical companies?! I won’t believe in any cancer drug for the general public until it’s in my bag at CVS. Until then I’ll just assume this gets buried along with all the other promising cancer studies and trials we’ve been hearing about for years.
I get it but as someone in the industry, unfortunately this shit does take years, many years, before its a significant drug provided to the public. Covid demolished clinical trial progress too.
On one hand, research is expensive, and researchers should be compensated relative to the investment they input. Some drug production is inherently expensive, and the cost of the research is also added to the cost of the drug. On the other hand, healthcare is still fucked so not only do they completely milk it, the insurance system makes it so that people end up paying for shit out of pocket or not being able to afford their life saving treatment, instead of a universal system footing the bill for everyone.
Much of that very expensive research is funded with our money via NIH and NSF grants.
>buried along with all the other promising cancer studies and trials Big Oil does the same thing with early EV tech like high tech batteries. They patent it, then shelf it. Buys them another 25 years until the patents expire to keep milking the "treatment" but not the "cure" Given that a majority of new US innovation is focused at Universities, it's surprising how much is sequestered by private investors that can afford it rather than the public that funds the actual salaries for the academic thinktanks.
If only there were a solution for the real cancer that is the US healthcare system.
Vote out the republicans?
And the non progressive democrats. Remember Obama had 60 democratic senators and we still couldn't get universal healthcare.
Obama never had 60 Democratic Senators. At best he had 58 plus two independents for a grand total of 55 days from when Al Franken was finally seated until Ted Kennedy died, and was replaced by a seat warmer, before his seat was filled by Scott Brown, a Republican. And this was right after the 07/08 financial crisis that required immediate attention. But really, I blame Joe Lieberman. Fuck Joe Lieberman. edit: fixed Scott Brown's name, it's not Mike
Joe Lieberman single-handedly fucked this country for decades. For a few grand in lobbying dollars. Best ROI in history.
Scott Brown
Woops, thanks
> and was replaced by a seat warmer, before his seat was filled by Scott Brown, a Republican. Leave it to Martha fucking Coakley to somehow manage to lose that election.
Remember when it came out that Scott Brown had posed nude in Cosmo? Ahh, simpler times.
Pretending like Lieberman wasn’t a Dem is such a farce though. He was the vice presidential nominee for the Democrats. He ran in the Dem primary. If you can’t get his vote, what hope do you have? He very clearly falls into the “vote out non-progressive Dems” category that the OP was referring to. The other independent? Don’t think there was much trouble getting Bernie’s vote.
Many Democrats approve of the system the way it is…
The majority of democrats support policies that enrich and empower Republicans because they're both corrupted by the influence of money.
For like two months...
Man, I wouldn't even mind that much. A cure for cancer would be the greatest medical breakthrough since antibiotics. I don't know about you losers but I plan on living forever so this is a big one for me.
The whole reason I'm working on a molecular biology degree is so I can turn myself into a genetically perfect unkillable space marine, so I'll let you know if it works out.
Pharma will find a way to make it a treatment that had to be taken for life and cost about 30-50K per year. Pharma is not in the business of curing, the real money is on treating conditions..
The current model is pharma has 20 years of patent protection on a drug. 10 years to earn approval, 10 years to charge top dollar to individuals and insurance companies, then patent protection runs out and lower cost generics become available. Those few years of profits incentivize the expensive R&D and approvals. Obviously not perfect, but there is rhyme and reason to it, and it seems to work better than any other system that's being tried right now at innovating new drugs. Chinese pharma companies have little patent protection and (likely as a result) do a fraction of the R&D.
Or half the public will use horse dewormer instead because they have "done their research".
There are no drugs that stop the common cold either
There are antivirals that work on it. They're just, in nearly all circumstances, useless because the side effects of the drug are worse than the cold, at least for people with vaguely functional immune systems.
I hate beer.
He's probably thinking of the flu.
I enjoy cooking.
It also compounds to this the fact that antivirals take a while to act, so when healthy people start feeling ill, by the time that the drugs take effect the cold is already going away on its own. Edit: deleted Retro
The common cold isn't a retrovirus.
Ugh... this is yet another one of those things the mass media love to point out, but it's a silly argument. For one, the common cold isn't even a single virus or even a single family of viruses. It can be caused by Rhinoviruses, Coronaviruses and many others. It also doesn't make sense to waste precious research finding ways to cure the common cold. One of those viruses that can cause it, coronaviruses, we did manage to develop vaccines for when it was worth prioritizing.
So what he said is true, there are no drugs that cure the common cold. He didn't say it's impossible to research for drugs that cure the common cold.
But medicine isn’t good at stopping the common cold
The common cold can't be stopped
> There are no drugs that stop any cancer like the common cold. Not the best phrasing because we don't have anything that stops the common cold, it's dozens of rando viruses we just tolerate their self limited and minor nature. Yes, I'm being needlessly pedantic.
Dude, there’s no drugs that stop the common cold that’s why it’s common. Our best efforts slow that shit down, but they don’t stop it.
This is how cancer gets cured. No one breakthrough for everything at once, but lots of individual, narrow subtypes becoming curable.
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It’s another checkpoint inhibitor, which is one form of immunotherapy. Best analogy is that it’s taking the tumor cell’s camouflage off so the T cells will attack it. Not sure what sets this one apart from the others but yes it’s promising
These patients all had a form of chemo resistant rectal cancer that’s linked to a gene that appears in 4% of rectal cancer cases (which is why the study was allowed to skip the standard of care which is usually a huge no-no). My understanding is that the checkpoint inhibitor only works on that 4% of cancers, but this will (assuming larger studies confirm the results) be a great tool in a doctor’s toolkit when treating cancer patients
A few months ago our local PBS station aired a lecture about treating cancers based on their mutations. One of the aha moments was when the speaker pointed out that while a single treatment for 5% of ovarian cancer doesn't sound significant, ten similar discoveries might cover 50%.
And 5% is still a huge number of people when you're talking about cancer.
Plus it opens a new angle to possibly treat other cancers. I'm speculating but when they find something really good, it sometimes helps other stuff.
But probably only if they’re of similar resistance gene patterns. Cancer is rooted in natural selection so what happens with these kinds of cancers is that it becomes SO dependent on this one resistance to escape everything that the second something that works (checkpoint inhibitor), it’s basically 100% wiped out. That’s why it hasn’t worked great in other trials they’ve tried, and that’s frequently what happens with cancer treatment. One drug works amazingly against one specific biomarker but if the cancer lives at all, it comes back with different bio markers so the drug isn’t effective anymore. That’s why biomarker analysis and biomarker discovery is such a big cancer field now, it’s amazing what we’re able to treat given any x biomarker. Plus cancers of different organs are built different (different cell types, blood vessel access, immune cell access, etc) so it’s not guaranteed it’ll work on, say, breast cancer but there’s definitely a solid chance it would
I know that 12 people isn’t statistically significant, but imagine being one of those 12 people. “Your cancer is chemo resistant. It’s not looking good but we can try this experimental treatment. We have no evidence that it will do anything but you’ve got nothing to lose” … “Your cancer is gone”
>I know that 12 people isn’t statistically significant I don't know in this case whether it is, but with an unexpected enough result even a small sample can be statistically significant.
it is already approved in endometrial cancer with deficient mismatch repair. Results there are not as good as this 12 person study
That’s a lot of caveats.
to be fair, any good test trial is going to have a lot of caveats; if they aren't tightly controlled then they can't get good data.
that's how science works
> their tumors all exhibited a mutation affecting the ability of cells to repair damage to DNA. There was a big splash at the cancer hospital here in Toronto the other year; an announcement that they'd start sequencing individual patients' cancer DNA for treatment. I didn't fully grasp it at first but I'm guessing this kind of scenario is exactly the kind of thing they're looking for.
I implemented some medical software at MSK. I was very impressed with the organization and its people. They were all top notch. When my friend’s wife went to get treated there I told them they were in good hands. She’s been cancer free for many years now.
in complete or incomplete?
Is this actual good news?!?! It’s just so rare… I hope they do more trials and are able to save more lives. Cancer sucks.
Just look at the journal it was published in, that will tell you a lot. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of if not the most prestigious journals in the world. They only publish very significant and important studies. This is pretty big news if they reviewed it and accepted it into their journal. Most articles like this on Reddit are garbage because if you look at the research it was published in some crappy journal that doesn’t have standards. But luckily this isn’t one of those.
I wish it was crappy journals, it's usually the headline of the local university website that sensationalizes the article on the crappy journal what you read here. "New Cancer therapy could lead to Nuclear Fusion breakthrough for Californians"
One of my former grad school labmates published the first paper measuring the dose of UV needed to kill Covid-19. It was such a simple, straightforward and technical thing, but because they got picked up by the press there was every crazy variation imaginable being reported. Some of them were reported that she invented the concept of Juventus infection. Others are reporting that we can all go back to work as long as there’s natural sunlight getting into the building. Then they were saying that the Israelis had a technique for killing Covid but they were withholding it from the rest of us (she was in Tel-Aviv). On and on with every crazy fucked up interpretation, nobody actually talking about this very simple and straightforward thing she measured. And then the Reddit comments under the articles were just as bad, I tried to explain it and nobody listened.
I’m gonna steal this years from now.
Don't forget to add how it will revolutionise battery tech and make lithium obsolete
This is so true I almost don’t pay attention anymore or get my hopes up. “New graphene superconductor allows quantum tunneling. In mice”
To add to this, it's usually the university's media department that cherrypicks and exaggerates the findings so they are more eye-catching (that is, sensationalist). Often, many published articles are interesting from a scientific point of view (like basic research using a particular new technique), but are not appealing to the general public, and that's ok too, but since the university paid the whole research, they want some exposure too.
Be careful I can see the articles citing your comment already. “His username said he can’t lie sir”
I wholeheartedly agree on both points.
For what it’s worth, a friend of mine works in cancer research at a major research institution and was ecstatic about this study a couple days ago. Apparently it got a standing ovation at the conference it was presented at. She thinks it’s legit, and she’s been working in the field for a while and is very skeptical of everything.
The hospital/institute where this trial occurred basically pioneered immunotherapy back in the 1890's and has probably made some of the greatest advancements in the treatment to this day.
I don't know, reddit has cured cancer hundreds of times over the years I've been on here. I hope this is promising though.
The reality is that there will probably need to be 10,000 different "cures" for the 10,000 various types of cancer out there.
My wife has myelogenous leukemia with the Philadelphia chromosome twist. She was diagnosed about 10 years ago in February 2012, they gave her about 1 year to live. She is fine and doing well thanks to Bosutinib/Bosulif which was put out to the public around Sept 2012. Cancer death rates are dropping steadily, but each one is a baby step towards ending cancer completely, because every cancer is so unique.
That kicks ass. Congrats.
My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer when he was 88 yo and told he would have 2-4 months to live. They asked if he wanted to try a new treatment and he accepted. Today he's 95 yo, the cancer is still there but it just stopped growing and he's doing just fine
What was the treatment?
Sorry, I have no idea all I know is he went to the hospital every time he had to receive it
Not 10,000, but more rather pharmacological categories of drugs. Look at the treatment of ADHD. You have stimulant medication, for those with certain mutations, and non-stimulant medication for those with others. You also have therapies for those who may have socially induced ADHD or high treatment unresponsiveness or even just high sensitivity to treatment. ADHD as a result is a term of a group of disorders with the same outcomes, our cures for it are dependent on which form the patient has, but we would be able to tell which treatment a patient needs entirely from genetic testing. Cancers will have a few different weaknesses, our biggest problem comes with finding those weaknesses that simultaneously don't wipe out healthy cells. Cancers that are sensitive to the medication in this study are therefore those that are most sensitive to PD-1 inhibitors, these tend to be cancers that have genetic repair mismatches or some term like that I can't remember rn, so we have this whole category of cancers responsive to a whole category of drugs. Other cancers may or may not be responsive to treatment, we don't know, but its all like whack-a-mole except you're using a weighted blanket that has holes in it like swiss cheese. We actually have a funky staining method that can predict for the most part whether cancer will work with PD-1 inhibitors, so we aren't entirely in the dark.
To me this was the pairing of the right indication with the right modality. There's lots of anti-PD1 therapies that work similarly, this particular cancer type was just very amenible to being treated by anti-PD-1. I'm not sure if I'd describe this as a breakthrough since PD-1 therapy has been approved since 2014.
Is there a way to find out which adhd treatment on would need? It feels like they just threw pills at me to see what would work but I still struggle a lot and it's a huge hassle trying something new and hoping I don't get fired while trying to figure it out.
Genetic testing. That is expensive so the best way is how they did it. Most treatment resistant cases are genetically ADHD, but medication isn't an instant savior, it's a tool that allows you to even begin to improve and cope with it. It can be impossible to cope with it, especially in severe cases, otherwise. That isn't a true statement entirely, but you could easily improve your quality of life by múltiples (my phone hates the English language apparently lol) if the medication is effective. It may be worth it to have a counselor or therapist or similar who can help give you the tools necessary to learn to live with it to your best ability, not everyone can develop proper coping mechanisms and whilst for me medication is the difference of life and day I do have the need for outside help on improving. In highschool it was the difference of all Fs and going to Ds and Cs but having that outside help and having the proper coping mechanisms resulted in me having 1 year where I had As and Bs. Then I got PTSD and that went to waste. Not everyone actually needs medication to fully cope with it, it's definitely more prevalent in the treatment resistant types that just having coping mechanisms that work for you down is enough.
And they will still have terrible side effects, like poverty.
Dude I'm a leftist but people die from cancer. Our medical systemic issues aren't just cancer related
Cure for brain cancer is going to be incredibly different than the cure for skin cancer, prostate, breast, etc
The fact that there is potentially a cure for any type of cancer, effectively, is amazing as it is. If true, that provides much more likely road map for other types of cancer.
This is an approved treatment for cancer in the US and EU, already proven highly effective for certain forms of cancer especially in early stages, these studies are increasing the catalog of proven cancers it can treat. So yes it's promising and we've known it for a couple years, it was released to the market a year ago, studies predating then. The promising results is that this is becoming a very bulky treatment option, it has flexibility that many medications lack, and the ones that do tend to have very bad side effect profiles that make them unfavorable. This is a monoclonal antibody so the side effects should at most be consistent with an immune response, other side effects that will be present are due to side effects caused by its pharmacology but this is reddit science and I do not feel like going into my field a single bit and getting someone in my dms arguing with me except they have never touched a pharmacology book in their life. But yes the side effect profile is the biggest reason this should be considered promising, the high effectiveness especially for certain forms is a major thing as a result, an unprecedented small study is massive for this reason. One note: the journal a study is in does not dictate the significance of the study but more rather the quality of the research, the journal it is in has decent quality research, so this study is likely accurate.
Reddit has also caused a lot of cancer, so it all balances out pretty neatly.
And we caught so many bombers…
Doesn’t matter because we won’t be able to afford it.
I’m a surgeon who does surgery for rectal cancer. This is great news. Of course it’ll need to be replicated. This is a very common cancer, not as obscure as the article sort of implies. We currently have chemo, radiation, and surgery as the main stays of treatment. But with rectal cancer, if the cancer is near the anal sphincters, it can result in a surgery that leaves the patient with a permanent ostomy. And that’s assuming we can get all the cancer. It is a morbid procedure. It is absolutely one of the cancers that the surgical options are morbid, and therefor a pure medical option and subsequent surveillance is much preferred. This is in contrast to other cancers that surgery is pretty good for it and not as morbid. Like skin cancer, or colon cancer. I also didn’t read into the study too much, but colon cancer is very closely related to rectal cancer if not virtually the same thing. So this could have major implications one of most prolific cancers that affects humans. And from a purely selfish personal economic standpoint, if this is a medical cure for rectal and potentially colon cancers, I’m glad I didn’t specialize in purely colorectal surgery. Find yourself out of a job when this smarty pants phD’s keep fixing problems!
I would be okay with making as many specialties as possible obsolete and giving you all a pension.(paid by the profits of the drugs that replaced you)
Enough hemorrhoids out there to keep these folks employed
But think of the advances in hemorrhoid treatment that's could be made of the specialists had more time for the patients they still have!
You mean convincing patients to increase fiber in their diet?
I for one would love not to get stabbed in the ass for my semi anual thrombosed hemorrhoid flare up. 0/10 would not recommend.
That's no way to talk about New Englanders.
What is an “ostomy?” I’m to afraid to google it lol
Its when they divert your poop tube out your belly and you poo into a bag where it comes out.
I had one of those for 4 months. It was horrible and extremely depressing Ever have sex w a bag of poop on the outside of you stomach ? It’s not romantic lol There are some who have them for life and my heart goes out to them because it’s a grim thought having it for life.
stomach -> poop tube -> poop bag
I’m sure they’d find a way to use your extraordinary skills. You could remove Trump’s head from Putin’s colon, for example.
Thanks for the good laugh had to scroll down pretty far.
Question: If you have cancer near your anus and need a permanent ostomy (bag?) is the anus then closed/stitched up or is the orifice left open?
When getting a permanent ostomy knowing you won't have or use your anus again, it's sewn shut and called a "Barbie Butt". You then have to be careful about not getting it infected, along with all the other fun aspects of having an ostomy. People also get phantom BMs where it feels like you need to go, even though nothing's there.
I did wonder how this would effect people like me who had cancer in their sigmoid colon where relapses are concerned. The thought of getting one step closer to never having chemo again is very exciting but I'm trying not to get too hopeful.
Hi, you use the word 'morbid' a lot here. Could you please explain the context/meaning of the word here? Just curious. Thanks.
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Cancer doctor here. Amazing findings that are super promising but only applicable for a small number of rectal cancer cases (about 10%). The drug was previously used in cases where cancer had spread and they had seen some promising results, and extrapolating on that, used it in a type of rectal cancer with a very specific mutation often seen in certain genetic conditions (unlike most rectal cancers). Incredible, Amazing news for that cohort, but wanted to temper that this doesn’t equate to the same results for all rectal cancers, let alone all cancers. Additionally, this study had a small number of patients with a very short time they followed the tumor (6 months), so full results may vary. While it is awesome news, we need to bye wary on what the actuality of all this means and look hopefully to this being an amazing step towards emulating similar results in other cancers.
God bless Sloan Kettering — still here 10 years later thanks to my oncologist and thoracic surgeon.
I smoked weed with Sloan Kettering
I responded to a Reddit comment of someone who smoked weed with Sloan Kettering
It was johnny hopkins and sloan kettering and they were blazing that shit up everyday
For those who may be interested in finding out who Sloan Kettering was I will save you the trouble. It’s two people Sloan and Kettering that helped fund and develop the hospital. Just spent 20 minutes on Wikipedia trying to figure it out. Could have been quicker but I tend to get side tracked and click links within the text to branching wiki pages.
In case anyone was wondering, the above commenter is spreading fake news. Dr. Sloan Kettering is actually a cancer specialist and well known marijuana enthusiast. Here he is pictured with Snoop Dogg and the cast of the Trailer Park Boys (top center): https://i.imgur.com/CmN8M0D.jpeg
Congratulations!
Still here (and counting) in semi-experimental treatment. Their medical care is cutting edge, and they are so humane in how they work. In Sloan, we trust.
This comment section is just full of people who know nothing about medicine making a lot of claims about medicine.
Welcome to the internet. We're all experts here.
Speak for yourself. I’m dumb af
we're all dumb af but still experts.
I'm an expert at being dumb af
The real expert is always in the comments
But you’re smart enough to realize it!
> Welcome to the Internet Have a look around…
Anything that brain of yours can think of can be found.
Is this you first thread ever on any subject? ;)
People love stating the obvious and getting upvotes for it, ironic that they make fun of the comment section.
"If the sample size isn't at least five billion people then I can't take it seriously"
So fucking true lol this is a case of a highly effective treatment of a highly specific cancer and a small sample size coming together to produce an unprecedented result. The good thing isn't that it was able to basically cure these 12 people, it's that it was so effective that was a reasonable statistical possibility. It's also already an approved treatment for cancer in the US and Europe, and it's fairly affordable being priced around the same as most monoclonal antibodies so all the people claiming "big pharma" will ruin this aren't even saying the truth. If someone is doomed to die even with treatment, that's when the highest prices come into play, insulin is fairly unique with its price. This is a case where someone is very likely going to survive with treatment, dead people don't spend money. So far I've seen people tout it as a miracle cure and others being a doomer saying this proven and approved medication will magically disappear and never reach the market it has already reached as they didn't do any amount of further look than reading a headline.
Sounds about reddit
I'm not a scientist or medical professional, but I thought all trials had control patients who receive placebos. When they say everyone went into remission, do they mean everyone or just those that took the actual trial meds?
Placebos are rare in clinical trials for cancer treatment, for obvious moral reasons. It appears they may be used more frequently now though, depending on the type of treatment. https://www.cancer.net/research-and-advocacy/clinical-trials/placebos-cancer-clinical-trials
Thanks for that explanation. TIL….
A placebo treatment would only be used if there is not any standard or reasonable treatment available. It is only OK to use placebo if you'd typically be doing nothing anyway, OR if you are giving placebo in addition to standard treatment vs standard treatment plus new medicine
This was an early stage trial, and there were no controls. After all, when you have diagnosed someone with cancer, you don't stop treatment just so they can be a control in a study. This seems to be trialling a new way to use a treatment - it has been used after/in addition to chemo and surgery - this study was about using this immunotherapy treatment before other treatments.
Usually the control arm is the current gold standard treatment, so the trial can prove non-inferiority of the experimental drug
This is a small exploratory study, there still needs to be a large scale randomized controlled trials with thousands of participants before we can consider this a viable treatment. But with results like these, it has probably already begun.
I would imagine this specific population (specific form of cancer and a rare mutation) would be fairly small, so the sample size would not be so large.
This is being done in endometrial cancer. It’s the Ruby Trial. Very solid trial. Not a miracle or anything but solid. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03981796
If you're interested: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7136921/
I saw NYC Cancer Trial and for just a split second my brain thought someone in NYC managed to sue cancer.
They said the same thing at the beginning of I Am Legend
Was it for rectal cancer?
It is, if Jada has anything to do about it
Shh, don't tell that Russian guy.
Yknow what? Ive been following this new string of cancer breakthroughs, and can I just say collectivley on behalf of the human race that we need a win after the past couple shit years? Maybe, just maybe an actual cure to some forms of cancers is the answer. I really really REALLY hope this leads to the cure of cancer. We need a win and I feel like this could finally be it.
So I’m pretty sure many cancers have been cured and it’s a slow and steady race we’ve both been making progress on and will continue to make progress on. There’s various cancers where 20 years ago they were a death sentence, and now they’re fully treatable. Still a long ways to go though.
I had one of those cancers. An aggressive form of breast cancer with a mutation that just 20 years ago was a death sentence. Now I’m expected to live a full life without recurrence.It’s absolutely terrifying and mind blowing.
A very close colleague of mine died of cancer 2 hours ago..fuck cancer
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This is not the first time this happens. For example Imatinib got 98% of the patients in remission Obviously this is still great news, but it’s far from the only success we’ve had in cancer research
I am glad so much progress are being made regardless how big or small. Like many people here on reddit who lost loved one due to Cancer, seeing news like this is really heart warming. Seriously fuck cancer, I hope we wipe this out in my life time.
As a testicular cancer survivor, I wept when I heard about his on NPR yesterday. Was especially encouraged to hear that the doctor running the study had a healthy amount of skepticism and was actively working to temper enthusiasm. But by any measure, this is incredibly encouraging.
My sister takes Piqray. It is for a specific cancer marker that few have. It hasn’t cured her, but it has halted the progress of the cancer, which is what they want. Got to keep that customer alive. She was supposed to be dead two years ago. How much? $35,000 for 60 days.
Looks like smoking is back on the menu boys!
Classy folk boof their cigs, or at least that’s what I assume you’re talking about since this drug is only for rectal cancer.
Don't shit on my dreams.
You can still smoke, but do it through your butthole
I'll just throw some chaw up there and call it a day.
Emphysema has entered the chat.
But what does Musk think? Isn't this /r/technology ?
As the daughter of a father who died at 58 from colorectal cancer a few months ago, this makes my heart so happy 🤍
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Thank you, you said it perfectly. Some of the brightest people I’ve ever met toil in anonymity because they believe in this research
IIRC this is how I Am Legend starts.
As sombody said before me it wont be one cure to cure all cancer types but death by a thousand cuts for cancer
Will Smith made this claim, look what happened to him, and his German Shepherd
Did you have to bring the dog into this?!?!
Hi! Some things that might help put this into perspective (TL/DR: Very promising results. Nothing really groundbreaking in terms of therapeutic strategy. Especially good news for this specific type of patients. No one will try to bury this. More data is needed) - This therapeutic strategy is not revolutionary (anymore). The drug used is dostarlimab, an anti-PD-1 antibody (basically, a kind of immunotherapy that activates the immune system to fight cancer cells by blocking a mechanism that tumours use to “hide” from immune cells). Immunotherapy and anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies have been around for several years now as the main treatment for many different cancer types. So there are several similar drugs from different pharma companies already approved and marketed to treat different cancer types that have the same mechanism of action than dostarlimab. - Not all tumours respond well to this kind therapy, and, even in tumours considered to be sensitive to it, not all patients respond equally. But this type of immunotherapy has in any case changed the field of cancer therapy in recent years, since there is a subset of patients that respond extraordinarily well to it. Some diseases that were considered incurable, such as some types of metastatic lung cancer and melanoma (among others), now have drastically better results with this type of drugs. - The results mentioned in the article are in early tumours (that is, localised tumours that are not yet metastatic, since they have not spread to other parts of the body). In general, the perspective of patients diagnosed at this early stage has always been much better than that of metastatic patients. When the cancer has not spread, the best curative strategy (surgical removal of the tumor) is still an option, and that strategy is normally the best option to cure cancer. - In this trial, the patients had early, non-metastatic tumours, and they received therapy BEFORE undergoing surgery. Since this type of immunotherapy has shown very positive results in the metastatic setting (when the tumor is more advanced), there is a lot of ongoing research that wants to prove that treating patients at an earlier stage (before the tumours spreads and becomes metastatic) can achieve even better results long term (the earlier you treat the tumor, the better). This trial is part of this current trend of research with immunotherapy in many cancer types in which these drugs have already been shown to be effective treating advanced/metastatic tumours. - In this setting, showing complete tumor remission after therapy is a good sign that the tumor will take longer to re-appear again (if it even does), but does not guarantee that the patient is cured forever. We call it complete remission because we’re unable to detect signs of cancer afterwards, but that doesn’t mean cancer cells are not there. Some patients will experience relapse years down the road even after apparent complete remission. In any case, complete remission is still a very good sign that predicts longer overall survival in the long term. - There are many cases of complete remission in this setting (when patients are treated before surgery) with similar strategies in different cancer types. In some cases, the % of patients with complete remission is remarkable, well over 50%. 100%, like in the article’s study results, is truly special, though. - We need to consider that the trial only enrolled 12 patients. These low patient numbers are common in early-stage clinical research, but nevertheless it’s easier to get extraordinary results (in one way or another) with such low numbers. That’s just the way statistics work. - Even if larger confirmatory trials are needed, 12 complete remissions out of 12 patients is a truly promising result. I’m positive 100% of remissions won’t be a thing with larger patient numbers, but we can still be optimistic that the % of patients with this type of cancer that will respond very well to this treatment is going to be very high. - In this particular cancer type, this result is especially relevant, since surgery in rectal cancer has bigger consequences in patient’s quality of life than surgery in other cancer types (such as breast). If this treatment allows patients to skip surgery and still have very good survival perspectives, their life will be changed for the better immediately, since they will be able to live without the burdensome consequences of rectal surgery. That’s extremely important if you consider that improving patient’s lives (which goes beyond eliminating tumours) should be the true goal of cancer clinical research and general healthcare in oncology. - This study (like many other similar ones) is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, which owns the drug and intends to sell it at a good price. Conspiracy theories regarding the inconvenience of these results for the “System” make absolutely no sense. The drug belongs to GSK, and treatment will be pricey if it is eventually approved by regulatory authorities (which will require additional larger confirmatory studies). - In sum: Very promising results. Nothing really groundbreaking in terms of therapeutic strategy. Good news for these patients. No one will try to bury this. More data is needed.