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> what's the worst that can happen? The patient dies from complications of the drug's use before the cancer.
If I had 6 months to live, and had no other options, I wouldn't care if a drug killed me in 10 days. Give me the option.
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> what's the worst that can happen? The patient dies from complications of the drug's use before the cancer.
In a purely rational world who cares. 4 months is not all that far away from 6 months and with cancer you’d probably prefer to not be alive for those last two months anyway. We should be willing to do Hail Marys with 5-10% chances of success rather than doing absolutely nothing.
Edit: and all of this is before the psychological implications of knowing your time is almost up. People would rather have burnt skin removed by a painful grinder than painless maggots because bugs and being eaten are so psychologically scarring most people won’t even consider it until they experience the pain of the flesh grinder work. People won’t think rationally anyways until it’s much too late.
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If I had 6 months to live, and had no other options, I wouldn't care if a drug killed me in 10 days. Give me the option.
It's not just those two choices though. It could be "6 months in relative comfort" and "10 days begging each minute to die but you can't because you're borderline unconscious". Or anything in between. Just saying. Medical guidelines are there for a reason and are often, as they say in the military, "written in blood".
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It's not just those two choices though. It could be "6 months in relative comfort" and "10 days begging each minute to die but you can't because you're borderline unconscious". Or anything in between. Just saying. Medical guidelines are there for a reason and are often, as they say in the military, "written in blood".
Having seen a family member die absolutely horrifically in a matter of weeks due to late-diagnosed pancreatic cancer, I'd consider suicide if I got the same diagnosis.
Still wouldn't let my loved ones try untested treatments though, especially if it buys only weeks of extra lifetime. The potential costs are too high.
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It's not just those two choices though. It could be "6 months in relative comfort" and "10 days begging each minute to die but you can't because you're borderline unconscious". Or anything in between. Just saying. Medical guidelines are there for a reason and are often, as they say in the military, "written in blood".
Having seen the last ten days of pancreatic cancer, there isn’t really a difference with what you’re describing.
I've been playing to much pokemon with my kids, read this as "Dugtrio"
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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).
PDX is a double edged sword. Human tumors are engrafted into mice with no immune system. Immune-cancer interface is incredibly important, yet completely lacking in these models. Consider that some of the greatest cancer drugs ever work specifically on the immune system (e.g. checkpoint inhibitors like Keytruda).
For all the folks complaining about "it's only in mice! things never work in humans!" -- I work at MSK and we definitely have seen success treating PDAC in humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06063-y "Why don't I see these treatments hitting the general public?" Because trials like these are phase I/II. Then you need a phase III that takes a long time to recruit a large cohort and has overall survival…
What's MSK?
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It's not just those two choices though. It could be "6 months in relative comfort" and "10 days begging each minute to die but you can't because you're borderline unconscious". Or anything in between. Just saying. Medical guidelines are there for a reason and are often, as they say in the military, "written in blood".
Having seen a family member die absolutely horrifically in a matter of weeks due to late-diagnosed pancreatic cancer, I'd consider suicide if I got the same diagnosis.
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Yeah putting myself in the shoes of someone with this disease or a loved one with this disease I would be so incredibly angry that we weren't allowed to try something when the alternative is certain death
There is a lot of money to be made selling snake oil to the desperate, so we definitely want regulation…