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A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

nytimes.com

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Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#31

Post by spywaregorilla »

horsawlarway wrote: post #27
ta988 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the real price of a nursing home in the US? Who can afford that?

Yes - that's not unreasonable for a full time care facility for something like dementia or Alzheimer's in the US (it's below what we paid for my grandmothers). If you're lucky - they have long term care insurance, and that covers most of the expenses for approx 2 to 10 years (depending on how old the insurance is - it's getting harder to find long plans, and they're all getting significantly more expensive as it turn…

I'd rather just die. Throw a party. Tell my kids they're getting a ton of cash. Say good bye on happy terms.

Vs. a miserable decay for everyone involved at huge expense. It's not worth it. Forget the money. The emotional toll is large and for whose benefit?

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#32

Post by zzzeek »

My dad was fortunate enough to get into a trial at Sloan for Obinutuzumab for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. At the moment, after 6 weeks of treatment, the percent of cancerous cells in his bone marrow has gone from 95% to 5%. The treatment was very intense as it overloads the kidneys on the first few treatments due to the dramatic amount of cells being flushed out. This is a cancer for which there was not much treatment previously other than extreme chemotherapy which still left little hope for complete remission. A family friend was also treated for Non-Hodgkins' lymphoma on another drug trial and she's now in full remission.

my uninformed impression is that there's a lot of new cancer treatments happening now that can turn the tide for a lot of types of cancer.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#33

Post by MauroIksem »

MontagFTB wrote: post #9

> The medication was given every three weeks for six months and cost about $11,000 per dose. That’s an $88,000 treatment for the medication alone. Given the apparent success of the drug, is it expected for the price to drop as the volume of patients spike?

It's cheaper than other chemos..my mom has breast cancer and her chemo according to insurance cost 65k per infusion every 3 weeks.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#34

Post by dangle1 »

MontagFTB wrote: post #9

> The medication was given every three weeks for six months and cost about $11,000 per dose. That’s an $88,000 treatment for the medication alone. Given the apparent success of the drug, is it expected for the price to drop as the volume of patients spike?

Probably not. That's an average-to-low price for a monoclonal antibody in the US, and many people with chronic (non-cancer) conditions pay that price every few weeks to remain healthy under something like a health-as-a-subscription model.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#35

Post by MauroIksem »

ta988 wrote: post #22
georgeburdell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why although I’ve almost got enough money to retire (~20x yearly expenses) but I’ll keep on working for another decade or two. All of these whiz-bang new treatments are going to be expensive. The most expensive medical procedure right now is a heart transplant at about $1M. Then there’s the $10k/mo for a nursing home

Is that the real price of a nursing home in the US? Who can afford that?

Yes it sounds crazy but when i was kid i worked as waiter at a nursing home and heard it cost 8k a month. That was nearly 20 years ago.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#36

Post by fnordpiglet »

zzzeek wrote: post #32

My dad was fortunate enough to get into a trial at Sloan for Obinutuzumab for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. At the moment, after 6 weeks of treatment, the percent of cancerous cells in his bone marrow has gone from 95% to 5%. The treatment was very intense as it overloads the kidneys on the first few treatments due to the dramatic amount of cells being flushed out. This is a cancer for which there was not much treatm…

I’m glad to hear about the positive outcomes for your dad. I hope he beats the cancer. It’s an exciting time to be alive.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#37

Post by _Microft »

rubicon33 wrote: post #7

Fascinating, this drug (molecule) somehow “unmasks” the cancer cells, allowing the body’s natural immune system to target and destroy them. How does a molecule do that!? Enters the blood stream, is absorbed by the cancer cell, and then…? Blocks some enzyme?

The name of the drug ends in "-mab" [0] indicating that the drug is based on monoclonal antibodies [1,2]. Those antibodies are tweaked to bind to cancer cells which makes the immune system attack the cancer cells.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_nomenclature#List_of_stem...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibody_therapy

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#38

Post by raindear »

Aransentin wrote: post #20

Some napkin math: Given rectal cancer's rate of survival of 67%, and the small size of the study (18 people), you should see similar results due to random chance every 1350th study. A cursory search on clinicaltrials.gov and I can find 7131 cancer studies started in 2021 alone. It's therefore not unreasonable for this one to be just a random fluke.

They did not just survive. They had no traces of cancer. That chance is much much lower.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#39

Post by toast0 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #27
ta988 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the real price of a nursing home in the US? Who can afford that?

Yes - that's not unreasonable for a full time care facility for something like dementia or Alzheimer's in the US (it's below what we paid for my grandmothers). If you're lucky - they have long term care insurance, and that covers most of the expenses for approx 2 to 10 years (depending on how old the insurance is - it's getting harder to find long plans, and they're all getting significantly more expensive as it turn…

Medicaid will pay for nursing homes (if medically justified) once you run out of money; but the per diem isn't that much. Apparently a lot of nursing homes will commit to accepting medicaid reimbursement for continuing care if you can commit to paying N years first. I've heard usually 2, sometimes 3. If you can swing that, your kids won't have to pay, or they'll pay for incidentals, but not the whole thing. There are homes that just straight up take medicaid, but they review poorly; it's not enough to pay decent staff at reasonable levels, so there you go.

What I've heard about long term care insurance is you can't really buy a plan with useful coverage anymore. The old plans were good as long as the insurer remained solvent, but many didn't.

Re: A cancer trial’s unexpected result: Remission in every patient

#40

Post by qgin »

ta988 wrote: post #22
georgeburdell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why although I’ve almost got enough money to retire (~20x yearly expenses) but I’ll keep on working for another decade or two. All of these whiz-bang new treatments are going to be expensive. The most expensive medical procedure right now is a heart transplant at about $1M. Then there’s the $10k/mo for a nursing home

Is that the real price of a nursing home in the US? Who can afford that?

You either have enough to pay or you pay until all your assets are exhausted to $0 and then Medicaid takes over.
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