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

economist.com

151–160 of 182 posts

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

#151
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

"Malignant" and "benign" isn't a dichotomy, it is a loose sliding scale.

"Benign" is any cancer where wait-and-watch is a valid medical approach.

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

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone dies. Dying 5 years later is a victory. I would go so far as saying if it was you or someone who you care about you would understand. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-cancer-rates-changed-... >However, even though the overall number of cases rises as the population grows, fewer people are getting and dying from cancer. Between 2000 and 2021, the incidence rate — or the rate of new cancer cases per 100,…

Unfortunately in this particular case people die about 6 months later, not 5 years. See the article.

it's unfortunate that they live an extra 6 months???

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

#153
post #148
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The political right is obsessed with minimizing Type II error. They feel it's better to miss good research results than to have the wrong people performing the research or chasing the wrong ideas to start with (a false negative) and the further to the right they are on the spectrum, the more important minimizing the wrong people and ideas becomes. This leads to less discovery and successes because more research gets…

>This leads to things like Lysenkoism

If the first point of comparison you reach for is the Soviet Union in the mid 20th century, that would suggest that the American political left has not in fact, in recent times, been interfering with science to the same extent as the Trump administration currently.

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

#154
i remember so much excitement around radioligand therapies like 177Lu-PSMA-617 being better than chemo and with way way less sides . And great improvements in pfs and os.

didnt seem to have lived up to the promise. seemed to have accelerated prostate cancer for my father who passed away in mere three months after first dose.

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

#155
post #130

Horrible disease. We just buried my wife’s father because of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. A month ago, he was still living his life as usual. Then he developed abdominal pain, was diagnosed, and died three weeks later. I think we should also invest more in better diagnostics and early cancer detection. That could save many lives too.

I’m sorry for your loss. I lost my father to it. Like you said, it happened so quickly. Truly horrible disease.

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

#156

i remember so much excitement around radioligand therapies like 177Lu-PSMA-617 being better than chemo and with way way less sides . And great improvements in pfs and os. didnt seem to have lived up to the promise. seemed to have accelerated prostate cancer for my father who passed away in mere three months after first dose.

Same. 177Lu-PSMA-617 caused severe blood cell shortage and within a month after the second dose my dad died.

Immunotherapies on the other hand seems to work wonders for many who respond to it. I regret for not trying it.

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

#157
My mother's cousin just died from pancreatic cancer on Monday. She was in a trial for this drug and failed. Trying to figure out how I feel about this or how my family would.

Personally, I have epilepsy and am increasingly aware that while some paradigm-shifting treatments are on the horizon, they are a decade or so away and likely won't come to market in time to fully help me (particularly reverse small but accumulating damage caused by seizures). And that's a weird feeling.

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand being frustrated and cynical with the pharmaceutical industry, but I have never worked with a single doctor that approaches patient care with the goal of getting them "hooked" on something for life. The pharmaceutical companies are not the ones making clinical decisions - in this case, it's a shared medical decision between a patient and their oncologist. Having seen how horrific pancreatic cancer is…

Pharmaceutical companies do make clinical decisions, it just isn't called a clinical decision. But they decide what research to pursue, and thereby decide which drugs exist for the doctor to choose.

They influence clinical decisions by adding to treatment options, but they do not make clinical decisions. If we believe that a drug's potential risks outweigh its benefits, clinicians will not prescribe it.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately in this particular case people die about 6 months later, not 5 years. See the article.

it's unfortunate that they live an extra 6 months???

In my comment I pointed out that "5 years" was a bit of an exaggeration compared to the results in the article (6 months). That seemed unfortunate to me. To me 5 years seems much better than 6 months.

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately in this particular case people die about 6 months later, not 5 years. See the article.

This is just a failure of understanding. This particular advancement is part of a decades long slog which taken together allows a substantial number of people to live meaningful additional durations every single year. 6 months average by itself means that John got another 3 years even if Jane only got 3 more days. If I pulled one person out of a burning building it would be newsworthy. Doctors are and have been pulli…

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