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New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

economist.com

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Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#131

Post by ckosidows »

Vaslo wrote: post #93
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>100% support (10s of millions of Americans do) many of these cuts when scientists are hired because they know someone, or are part of some “group” rather than being the best choice. Prove it. Prove this happens at a large scale. This is just nonsense talking points.

[flagged]

This should go without saying, but the person you're replying to obviously wants you to prove instances of scientists receiving grant money because they know someone or are part of a group. They are not asking you to prove the support of the people.

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#133

Post by ycombinator_acc »

wongarsu wrote: post #69
juleiie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That won't create justice, only judges that forever encode current prejudices

As opposed to future prejudices?

I agree: the trials are not speedy enough. None of us will live long enough to take advantage of the endgame version of this.

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#134

Post by DataDaoDe »

cschmidt wrote: post #104
inglor_cz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't those 20 per cent of tumors more concentrated on the "intractable" side? If so, then the hyperbole is forgivable.

It does seem like those 20% are exactly on the nasty side. So even more impressive.

I'm no expert, and don't know if it applies in this case, but for a cancer I had (lymphoma) I was told that aggressive can often be easier to treat or "cure" (as defined by survival rates, etc.) since it also can often be hit more brutally by the treatments.

Anyway, since many in my family have died from this horrible cancer, its fantastic news to hear of any improvements there.

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#135

Post by jibal »

gcanyon wrote: post #6

As is often the case, the title is hyperbolic. The discovery applies to 20% of tumors, and "one of cancer's significant defenses" or "a key weakness of cancer" would be more accurate. That said, I'll happily take "we discovered a key weakness in 20% of cancers," please and thank you.

Not hyperbolic, just incomplete ... this drug inhibits the KRAS mutation that is the "master switch" for 90% of pancreatic cancers and 50% of colon cancers. KRAS was considered "undruggable" so this is a huge breakthrough which is why oncologists gave a standing ovation for nearly a minute in the middle of a talk, with some of them in tears.

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#136

Post by jibal »

DataDaoDe wrote: post #134
cschmidt wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem like those 20% are exactly on the nasty side. So even more impressive.

I'm no expert, and don't know if it applies in this case, but for a cancer I had (lymphoma) I was told that aggressive can often be easier to treat or "cure" (as defined by survival rates, etc.) since it also can often be hit more brutally by the treatments. Anyway, since many in my family have died from this horrible cancer, its fantastic news to hear of any improvements there.

Sorry, it does not apply ... this drug inhibits (for the first time) the KRAS mutation (previously considered "undruggable") that is the primary cause of 90% of pancreatic cancers and 50% of colon cancers.

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#137

Post by manmal »

pancreaticdiet wrote: post #79
manmal wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t glutamine also part of vegan diets? I don’t eat meat myself, but your assertion has me wondering about glutamine.

Yes, and your body requires it for things like muscle maintenance. Also, sugar is essential to what makes you you, that is, the brain requires glucose to function. The goal is to reduce excess intake of these things to reduce their availability for any cancer cells to use to grow and divide.

Sure, and the body makes its own glucose. The only way to deplete that is prolonged fasting.

If you‘re specifically aiming for low glutamine, going vegan won’t cut it though, depending on what foods you leave in. Soy is high in it. Eg a glass of milk is lower glutamine than a serving of tofu.

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#138

Post by pestatije »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #111
epistasis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer is not one thing, it's a huge zoo of many many many ways that cells start to break the social contract and divide in an uncontrolled manner. One of the most commonly observed broken mechanisms is mutation in the gene KRAS that turns this on/off growth switch into the permanently on position. This has been known for decades, of course. And there have been huge amounts of effort to try to develop drugs that targ…

Can we end up with a situation like antimicrobial resistance, where cancer itself evolves to resist these new treatments?

thats environmental evolution...what happens here is cell "evolution" within a specific body

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#139

Post by DataDaoDe »

jibal wrote: post #136
DataDaoDe wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, and don't know if it applies in this case, but for a cancer I had (lymphoma) I was told that aggressive can often be easier to treat or "cure" (as defined by survival rates, etc.) since it also can often be hit more brutally by the treatments. Anyway, since many in my family have died from this horrible cancer, its fantastic news to hear of any improvements there.

Sorry, it does not apply ... this drug inhibits (for the first time) the KRAS mutation (previously considered "undruggable") that is the primary cause of 90% of pancreatic cancers and 50% of colon cancers.

No reason to be sorry, that sounds like this is even better news then :)

Re: New pancreatic cancer drug might open the door to much longer survival times

#140

Post by jibal »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #33
bad_username wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cancer is not one thing, I know this is a popular "well actually" to do, but it is not always useful in a conversation. Yes, all cancers are different, but yes, cancer is also one thing: unchecked, harmful division of cells. Bacteria are also all different, but still they are "one thing", and despite their diversity, antibiotics exist that can deal with many species of them at once. It is reasonable to talk about b…

Benign cancers are a thing. They might not kill like they show in the Hollywood movies, but your quality of life will be significantly diminished.

> Benign cancers are a thing.

No, they aren't. Cancer is malignant by definition.

There are benign non-malignant tumors.

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