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

41–50 of 165 posts

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

#41

Post by philsnow »

stevenwoo wrote: post #24
dyauspitr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The anti abortion and anti birth control contingent would never let even a little of that happen in countries with significant fundamentalist and Catholic voters. There are plenty of examples where these people force babies to be born without a brain on principle. Just recently https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/louisiana-woman-carryin... One can go back to something like Terri Schiavo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

What do you mean by "without a brain"?

There are multiple examples in the literature of people leading perfectly ordinary lives whilst unknowingly having no more than 5% of the typical amount of brain matter (typically because of hydrocephalus). For example, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.7434023 from 1980.

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

#42

Post by inglor_cz »

boh wrote: post #14

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.

It's not funny how people make judgments like this without any factchecking, just by their gut.

Talk to any actual healthcare worker from an oncology ward. (A nurse will do.) With most cancers, your chances of survival are non-trivially better now than even in 2010. Immunotherapy absolutely exploded in the meantime. For example, the vast majority of monoclonal antibodies (not just for treatment of cancer) were only approved in the last 15 years.

There are some notable holdouts like glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer, and these tend to draw attention. But there is real progress.

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

#43

Post by goda90 »

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 wonder how long until we'll start seeing these breakthrough cancer treatment articles for clinical trials done in dogs. Oncologists think dog research is a better fit than mice because of greater genetic similarities to humans and the fact that pet dogs live in similar environments as their owners. I think in general people definitely wouldn't be as ok with inducing cancer in dogs as in mice, but finding volunteers owners of dogs with existing cancer is certainly easier.

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

#44

Post by m463 »

jonshariat wrote: post #2

I've been playing to much pokemon with my kids, read this as "Dugtrio"

there must be some sort of word for "games-bleeding-into-real-life" for stuff like this.

I remember years ago playing some games, and hearing similar sounds in real life would startle (or amuse) me. And you can't really explain it to anyone around you, lol.

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

#45

Post by D-Coder »

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…

So: half (1+5) of them made it at least 50 days without cancer, and the other half made it at least 50 days with a smaller tumor? This sounds excellent to me. I agree that the sentence you quoted is overselling, though.

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

#46

Post by inglor_cz »

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…

Mice are very short-lived compared to us. In humans, the usual standard of judgment when it comes to cancer is "5 year survival". No mouse has ever lived for 5 years yet, that would be like 180 years for us.

Prolonging a mouse's life by a few months is non-trivial and hints (only hints) at potential efficiency of such treatment in other species as well.

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

#47

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

> Clinical implications: While more research will be needed before trials in humans can begin

Why? Seriously, think about it. Most people with pancreatic cancer have nothing to lose and many of them have just weeks or months to live.

Daraxonrasib, Afatinib, and SD36 are molecules that can already be purchased in bulk, and what's the worst that can happen?

Our society's morbid, irrational fear of quack medicine causes orders of magnitude more deaths through therapeutic neglect than it prevents through safety screening. "Better 10,000 die of cancer than 1 person die of fraud/waste/mismanagement or even in failed experiments performed in good faith."

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

#48

Post by gus_massa »

apparent wrote: post #20
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.

Where did you get that "50 mice days is equivalent to about 5 human years"?

Mice are short lived, so the time for some events like sexual maturation are shorter.

On the other hand, the problem with cancer is that it adapts, it "learn" how to avoid the effect of the drugs, or how to make the signals to get more blood vessels, or ... I think most of these only depend on how many times the cancer cells reproduce to get a lucky adaptation, so for these effects 200 days is only 200 days.

Also survival rate depends on how early it's detected. In a recent post about colon cancer, the mice got the treatment like 2 weeks after the cancer cells were injected. My guess is that this study also has a short time before the treatment.

Early detection improves survival rate a lot: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/pancreatic-can...

> Localised: More than 25 out of 100 people (more than 25%) survive their cancer for 3 years or more after diagnosis.

> Regional: Around 15 out of 100 people (around 15%) survive their cancer for 3 years or more after diagnosis.

> Distant: Only 1 out of 100 people (1%) survive their cancer for 3 years or more after diagnosis.*

Also (combining all detection stages):

> Generally for adults with pancreatic cancer in the UK:

> around 5 out of every 100 (around 5%) survive their cancer for 10 years or more

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

#49

Post by snapcaster »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #47

> Clinical implications: While more research will be needed before trials in humans can begin Why? Seriously, think about it. Most people with pancreatic cancer have nothing to lose and many of them have just weeks or months to live. Daraxonrasib, Afatinib, and SD36 are molecules that can already be purchased in bulk, and what's the worst that can happen? Our society's morbid, irrational fear of quack medicine causes…

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

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

#50

Post by phoronixrly »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #47

> Clinical implications: While more research will be needed before trials in humans can begin Why? Seriously, think about it. Most people with pancreatic cancer have nothing to lose and many of them have just weeks or months to live. Daraxonrasib, Afatinib, and SD36 are molecules that can already be purchased in bulk, and what's the worst that can happen? Our society's morbid, irrational fear of quack medicine causes…

Ethics is a topic I would never trust HN on.
Post reply on HN