Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

drugtargetreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 165 posts

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#11

Post by Projectiboga »

mft_ wrote: post #8
reenorap wrote: post #6

I keep reading about these advancements in pancreatic cancer like early detection or possible treatments, but nothing ever seems to make it to daylight. Is there a reason why there's such disparity between this?

1. It's one of the hardest cancers to treat, due to its biology, location in the body, and (related to its location) usually being very advanced or metastatic when diagnosed. 2. Mice =/= humans, as noted. However we're heading into a new era of treatments for some cancers including pancreatic. New agents targeting RAS/KRAS pathways will likely deliver the first meaningful treatment advances in decades. Daraxonrasib (…

Here are the three simultanious things targeted in this experment.

Triple inhibition strategy Pancreatic cancer remains notoriously difficult to treat, with very poor survival rates and limited effective therapies. The new research aims to combat this by targeting RAF1, EGFR family receptors and STAT3 signalling – nodes that are crucial for tumour growth and survival.

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#12

Post by gus_massa »

> The results demonstrated the therapy not only reduced tumour size but also entirely stopped tumour growth with no evidence of tumour resistance for more than 200 days after treatment.

More details in https://www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10.1073/pnas.2523039122/suppl... See page 25

In mice, N=12.

1 survived 200 days without cancer and was euthanized for 'ocular ulcers'.

5 survived 50-150 days, without cancer but were euthanized for other health problems

6 survived 50-150 days, and still had a smaller tumor and were euthanized for other health problems

My take away: Interesting, but the press article is overselling the result by a lot.

Edit: Fixed link.

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#14

Post by boh »

It's funny how many years of "X found to be effective in fighting cancer" stories have filtered through HN and then you never hear about it again.

The research at treating mouse cancer has been making great strides--people cancer still has a long way to go though.

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#15

Post by apparent »

> These agents together were tested in orthotopic mouse models of PDAC, where tumour cells are implanted in a location that closely resembles their natural environment in the pancreas.

Ugh, of course: "in mice"!

> The combination therapy also led to significant regression in genetically engineered mouse tumours and in human cancer tissues grown in lab mice, known as patient-derived tumour xenografts (PDX).

OK, maybe "in human tissue grown in mice" isn't so bad.

Fingers crossed. Pancreatic cancer is terrible.

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#16

Post by apparent »

ngriffiths wrote: post #4

IN MICE. (To be fair, also IN SOME OTHER BETTER MICE). https://jamesheathers.medium.com/in-mice-explained-77b61b598... (mostly a joke, but I'd be in favor of adding context to the HN headline if possible)

This isn't quite as bad as the garden variety "in mice" studies:

> The combination therapy also led to significant regression in genetically engineered mouse tumours and in human cancer tissues grown in lab mice, known as patient-derived tumour xenografts (PDX).

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#17

Post by rossant »

ngriffiths wrote: post #4

IN MICE. (To be fair, also IN SOME OTHER BETTER MICE). https://jamesheathers.medium.com/in-mice-explained-77b61b598... (mostly a joke, but I'd be in favor of adding context to the HN headline if possible)

I opened the comments fully expecting the top reply to be “In mice.” Bingo.

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#18

Post by giardini »

dyauspitr wrote: post #9
ngriffiths wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because research on real humans and real diseases is exceptionally difficult. Clinical research is notoriously expensive, results are likely to differ from non-human (preclinical) models, and trials take forever to get started, gather enough data, and get a drug actually reviewed and approved. So even when everyone is excited by the preclinical data, there are so many barriers (both scientific and non-scientific) tha…

We really should be able to grow human bodies without a brain for testing purposes. It’s gruesome but realistically victimless at the end of the day.

Can you imagine the political/religious push-back were you to do that?!

Growth of single human organs or organ tissue is easier, cheaper and less fraught with political peril.

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#19

Post by ramesh31 »

apparent wrote: post #16
ngriffiths wrote: post #4

IN MICE. (To be fair, also IN SOME OTHER BETTER MICE). https://jamesheathers.medium.com/in-mice-explained-77b61b598... (mostly a joke, but I'd be in favor of adding context to the HN headline if possible)

This isn't quite as bad as the garden variety "in mice" studies: > The combination therapy also led to significant regression in genetically engineered mouse tumours and in human cancer tissues grown in lab mice, known as patient-derived tumour xenografts (PDX).

>"The combination therapy also led to significant regression in genetically engineered mouse tumours and in human cancer tissues grown in lab mice"

Required XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1217/

Re: Drug trio found to block tumour resistance in pancreatic cancer in mouse models

#20

Post by apparent »

gus_massa wrote: post #12

> The results demonstrated the therapy not only reduced tumour size but also entirely stopped tumour growth with no evidence of tumour resistance for more than 200 days after treatment. More details in https://www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10.1073/pnas.2523039122/suppl... See page 25 In mice, N=12. 1 survived 200 days without cancer and was euthanized for 'ocular ulcers'. 5 survived 50-150 days, without cancer but were euth…

Apparently 50 mice days is equivalent to about 5 human years, so even if these other causes of death here directly caused by the treatment (not alleged), surviving this much longer (5-20 years) would be pretty incredible for humans.
Post reply on HN