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Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

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Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#241

Post by Earw0rm »

zmgsabst wrote: post #203
lambdaphagy wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own view is not that self-experimentation is an appropriate, let alone likely efficacious, substitute for reconciliation to the idea of one's death. I certainly don't endorse interference in others' treatment, however well-intentioned. If you want to say: "you shouldn't treat your terminal illness like a science fair project unless you possess extreme sang froid and are precommitted to the acceptance of your death…

As a pure numbers game, I’d find it more surprising if “broscience” never found a result: - a lot of terminal patients are prone to experimenting - their overall number probably eclipses the total number of trial patients in a given year by at least one order of magnitude and I’d believe two or three - they don’t have institutional barriers to what they can try, eg, they’ll fund non-patentable treatments - a lot of t…

True. But for the highest-grade nasties, where median life expectancy is unfortunately short and progression near-universal, you don't need much signal to get above the noise.

Anyone surviving more than a handful of years with something like that is an outlier such as to merit a full work-back, and at that point it's no longer bro science.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#242

Post by Earw0rm »

adamredwoods wrote: post #212
WithinReason wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Buyers_Club

>> Remember than when the AIDS epidemic broke out. The doctors and labs didn’t help much. People took things in their own hands and tried stuff, and in the end, they found things that worked. What??? It was the FDA that blocked access, not doctors and labs. It was the doctors and labs that were trying to find treatments. Peptide T and AZT had several studies going on.

Likelihood of this happening in the internet era, for something with an order of magnitude more rapid progression than HIV/AIDS?

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#243

Post by egorfine »

cj wrote: post #91

My best friend died of brain cancer. Although not from the cancer itself. He died of an opioid overdose. He was prescribed pain killers for cancer-related pain, and got hooked. His doctors stopped prescribing, so he found it elsewhere, and got a bad batch with fentanyl. (He was a VC living in SF, well to do, he had all the treatment money could buy, but cancer ended up not being what killed him) I know this isn’t wha…

> He died of an opioid overdose

I'd say this is quite far away from the top entries in the list of worst ways to go.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#244

Post by gadders »

I read this article once: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/bacteria-on-th...

" The tumor had spread to his brain stem and was shortly expected to kill him. Muizelaar cut out as much of the tumor as possible. But before he replaced the “bone flap”—the section of skull that is removed to allow access to the brain—he soaked it for an hour in a solution teeming with Enterobacter aerogenes, a common fecal bacterium. Then he reattached it to Egan’s skull, using tiny metal plates and screws. Muizelaar hoped that inside Egan’s brain an infection was brewing."

The scientists did get penalised for it but as a hail mary it might be worth investigating. My best wishes for your friend.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11080

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#245

Post by circlefavshape »

Dansvidania wrote: post #22
zblevins wrote: post #2

I have heard some people having luck by switching to a ketogenic diet. Here’s a paper I could find on PubMed about this. Sorry to hear about your friend. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9504425/ Edit: I am not a doctor. My wife is a physician and I spoke to her before posting this.

I wish I had something better to add, but I can add an anecdotal +1 to this. A relative went keto pretty hard after a bad diagnosis and they are still going strong. As far as I understand it, cancer cells can only function on glucose.

In my life a relative (by marriage) went keto after a bowel cancer diagnosis, and died at age 45

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#246

Post by aCameronhuff »

d--b wrote: post #173
aCameronhuff wrote: post #152

Here’s a summary of all of the current treatments and near future treatments for GBM/glioma: https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kTa3eamaL91Smjh9r_0CYv5OYFX4... . This is as complete a list as you’ll find, written in plain English, with citations for every part of it. Slightly out of date but there hasn’t been much that’s new and different since last year. Vorasidenib was approved recently in USA and it’s the most effect…

Thanks a lot

You’re welcome. I’m the author if you have any questions.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#247

Post by aCameronhuff »

mahkeiro wrote: post #216
aCameronhuff wrote: post #152

Here’s a summary of all of the current treatments and near future treatments for GBM/glioma: https://docs.google.com/file/d/1kTa3eamaL91Smjh9r_0CYv5OYFX4... . This is as complete a list as you’ll find, written in plain English, with citations for every part of it. Slightly out of date but there hasn’t been much that’s new and different since last year. Vorasidenib was approved recently in USA and it’s the most effect…

I read about this guy last year, using melanoma approach (he is a melanoma specialist) for his GBM: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/03/brainstorm-ric... Of course n=1, but I find it interesting when there is this cross field way of thinking.

He’s gotten a lot of press attention and it’s great, but it’s not something new. The researchers who do GBM work are always looking at developments in the parallel tracks of other cancers. It’s not really the case that they haven’t looked at melanoma work. That’s sort of a news spin on the nature of this work. There’s always cross-pollination because the genetic underpinnings of cancers are almost always related. For example, IDH inhibitors (the most recent advancements for glioma patients) are relevant for several kinds of cancer, not just gliomas.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#248

Post by Modified3019 »

I suggest looking into hyperthermia therapy (which is used in combination with immune system priming drugs, and sometimes traditional chemical/radiation treatments)

Unfortunately the classic easy external way it’s done isn’t the best fit for brain application, as it’s literally heating the body up in a sauna to a point where heat reactive proteins are generated. This forces the cancer to either open up various cellular transport mechanisms (announcing itself to the immune system) or denature (and die). This is repeated multiple times, and can actually be so effective and the doctor overseeeing the treatment needs to be careful not to kill off too much cancer at once if there is a large amount, due to the resulting necrosis.

However related to this for deep body use is using radiation devices or probes to heat tumorous areas deeper in the body, or outright use laser probes to not-quite-burn places. This can allow access to otherwise inoperable tumors. See Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT)

https://www.barnesjewish.org/Medical-Services/Neurology-Neur...

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17114-hyper...

Hyperthermia therapies are lesser known for some tragic reason, but they are FDA approved.

Re: Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?

#250

Post by selenography »

mllev wrote: post #178
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

↑This. Stop. No. Don't go down the false hope path. It's cruel AF and puts off acceptance, wasting time that they can put to better use post acceptance. Maybe let your friend explore what they want to do and you just give support. Celebrate what they celebrate and cry with them when they cry. Find(or better make) them some comfy/cute hats. If you want to research the things about the hospital, the procedures they are…

I guess hope can be false now.

Sure, if by "now" you mean "at least since Geoffrey Chaucer's time":

> And thys vyce cometh of false hope that he thynketh he thall lyue longe, but that hope fayleth ful ofte.

[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Workes_of_Geffray_C... [2] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=false+hope&yea...

Or, come to that, "at least since Cicero's time":

> ...cui legi cum vestra dignitas vehementer adversetur, istius spes falsa et insignis impudentia maxime suffragatur.

[3] https://anastrophe.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/perseus/citequery3.p...

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