As was pointed out before, those are unpublished results. We cannot extract any significant information from this article. For example, in many early phase trials, the standard treatment is often given WITH the new drug (or vaccine), so we'd have to know the response rate of the control group.
As other pointed out, blood cancers are very different than solid tumors -- they've historically been easier to treat. That's probably due to the tumor micro environnement that makes solid tumor a very different process. To put simply, I would not assume for a second that outcomes for blood cancers can be replicated for solid tumors.
Immunotherapy is all the rage in the cancer world right now. It resonates with patient that "their own bodies can destroy cancer". It's almost romantic. Kinda like when anti-angiogenesis drugs were all the rage a few years ago...
The "cancer vaccine" has been tried many times before. Pretty much every time the cancer finds a way around it. Sipuleucel-T is a commercially available cancer vaccine for prostate cancer. It adds a few months for $$$, but newer, non-vaccine treatments are now doing better.
We're unlikely to find "a" cure for cancer; we'll eventually find "cures" for cancer, but it will be small, incremental steps. In the meantime I'll go back to my clinic and continue to enrol patients on clinical trials
What about extremely early and accurate diagnostic screening , which can offer 0% or very close to 0% false negatives(and ~30% false positives, like quanterix talks about), followed by a full panel of the relevant proteins ,guiding to the correct,low dose highly targeted chemo therapies ?
Considering that some results of treating early(by today's standards <2-3mm tumor) we can get to something like 95%-98% 5-years cancer free rates(while suffering some side effects), in breast cancer - it seems possible to make cancer a low-risk ,low-pain disease - as long as you do your regular checkups. Right ?
Summary:
Cytotropic Heterogeneous Molecular Lipids (CHML) are used to treat patients with multiple cancers. Numerous studies have been conducted in cellular, animal, pre-clinical and clinical trials. Results showed that CHML, as a biological molecular missile, can easily penetrate through the target cancerous cells to perform programmed cancer cell death (cancer apoptosis). Furthermore, CHML has produced anti-cancer angiogenesis and induced immune function increase. CHML was used to treat 592 patients with cancers in clinical trials. Results confirmed the following advantages of CHML treatment: non-toxicity, high response rate, high quality of life, and high survival rate for these patients. The protocols include local injection, arterial drip and intravenous drip to treat cancers of liver, lung, skin, breast, brain glioma, colon and rectum, stomach, head and neck, leukemia, malignant lymphoma, sarcoma, malignant melanoma, myeloma, and metastasis cancers, etc.
Response rates (CR+PR) were as follows: liver cancer 77%, lung cancer 68%, skin cancer 94%, breast cancer 83%, brain glioma 78%, colon and rectum cancer 80%, stomach cancer 50%, head and neck cancer 78%, leukemia 83%, malignant lymphoma 71%, sarcoma 43%, malignant melanoma 67%, and myeloma 50%. No (0) episodes of grade II or above adverse reactions were observed.
>We're unlikely to find "a" cure for cancer; we'll eventually find "cures" for cancer, but it will be small, incremental steps.
I completely disagree. There will be a "cure", but it'll be a while, and it won't resemble current medicinal methods at all. I predict that in another century or so (assuming civilization doesn't collapse like the Roman Empire and send us into another Dark Age, but on a global scale), we'll basically become cyborgs, with nanites implanted in us to augment our natural bodily functions. These nanites, basically being nanoscale robots, would improve on or replace our immune systems, eliminating cancer, as well as most aging effects.
I really appreciate the down-to-earth-ness of this interview, this man is being very honest. It's good not to create false hope and present cancer immunotherapy (yet perhaps) as the thing that will cure any cancer.
However, it is the only real curative treatment next to surgery and really the only treatment that can cure metastatic cancer. At the moment though, only in small percentage of people with specific cancers (mostly melanoma, skin cancers.) So there certainly is reason to be excited, the cancer field is all over this at the moment so advances in the near future can be expected.
My mother in law is in this therapy right now. The doctors were surprised it isn't working (prior chemo worked pretty well giving her another year of life, once it stopped they switched her to this treatment). They're looking at hospice care right now.
When the cancer gets to stage 4, you're looking at when not if the cancer is going to kill you. So to everyone you know that doesn't get regular checkups, encourage them to do so. Both my parents have had cancer but it was caught early, my mother in law never went to a doctor after having her last kid ~25 years ago.
Immunotherapy CAN cure any one case of cancer just not all cases. As it stands, immunotherapy has risen to 10% of success in many trials outside of even melanoma/leukemia. That's 10% of cases that are were previously out of options. Heck, I saw an ad of Opdivo (nivolumab) just the other day for lung cancer.
People don't realize the significance but 10% is a lot. Simply because there's so many cancer cases, 10% can already save millions.
The method by which vaccinations work is immunological. I think the most exciting frontier in cancer biology is prophylactic (preventative) vaccination. If we are able to develop effective vaccines against cancers, that will very much change the game.
This is currently a research frontiers area--but in 10-20 years, I believe that we will have made significant inroads on it.
"The findings are yet to be published and reviewed."
Are people really ok with this practice of researchers talking about their discoveries without having shared the methods and data (I don't care so much about the review aspect)? I'm certainly not, but apparently many think this is acceptable for some reason because I don't see any pushback.
I'm biased. My wife was diagnosed with metastatic cancer 6 months ago. With current standard treatments there is a 3-year survival rate of practically zero, so to me the most important thing is getting new effective treatments developed and brought into clinical practice as soon as possible.
I haven't seen the presentation about the study (a related news briefing is here [1]) so I don't know whether you're correct to say that the researchers haven't shared their methods and data. They seem quite happy to share technical details at the news briefing.
However, regardless of that, I still think it is a good thing if researchers talk about their findings at an early stage, especially if the findings are as dramatic and positive as these. If a treatment is available and you have patients out there dying with no other options, then it is just wrong to hide that away.
In my opinion we treat these things far too cautiously. It is not optimal for the individual and it is not optimal for society. By sharing /and/ opening up options like this to terminally ill patients we can (a) save individual lives and (b) speed up development and refinement of new treatments to benefit everyone.
The problem is that the incentives we have in place treat a cancer death as acceptable, while a treatment-related death is unacceptable for researchers, doctors and drug companies (unless they are shielded by layers of clinical-trial bureaucracy or years of standard practice). The result is that the course of treatment doesn't properly weigh the different sources of risk. Whether the goal is quality-adjusted life years for an individual patient or faster development of effective and safe treatments, the current system is way too conservative.
These results were presented at a meeting. The final results will be eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal.
This technique is actually fairly well known and other groups are running similar trials. So this isn't some black box. There is a long history of peer-reviewed publications that got us to this point. The basic science behind these techniques has already been published. This is just the next step - presenting the clinical trial data for these studies.
In general, blood cancers are more accessible than solid tumors. With blood cancers, the majority of the cancer cells are in the blood or in very well perfused tissues (bone marrow, spleen, thymus, etc), meaning that drugs/treatments can get to the targets very easily.
With solid tumors, you have to deal with the complexities of the tumor microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment is the complex environment of the cancer tumor tissue. Of particular note, decreased lymphatic drainage, increased connective tissue, and aberrant angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels) create very high interstitial fluid pressures within the tumor, limiting the ability of drugs or cells to penetrate within the tumor and "work their magic" by reaching the cells/target molecules of interest, etc.
Blood cancers are a good proof-of-principle for many cancer therapies; translation to solid tumors is difficult (see challenges with CAR-T cell immunotherapy).
As for gene manipulation in blood--yes, it is relatively easy to manipulate genes in blood. Hematopoetic Stem Cells (which differentiate into all different kinds of blood cells) can be withdrawn without too much difficulty, manipulated in the lab, and then reinjected into the patient.
I think it is because in blood drugs and gene based treatments are the only option, surgery is simply not an option. This has always spurred the blood cancer field to take greater risks, the all or nothing approach.
[+] [-] marckemil|10 years ago|reply
As other pointed out, blood cancers are very different than solid tumors -- they've historically been easier to treat. That's probably due to the tumor micro environnement that makes solid tumor a very different process. To put simply, I would not assume for a second that outcomes for blood cancers can be replicated for solid tumors.
Immunotherapy is all the rage in the cancer world right now. It resonates with patient that "their own bodies can destroy cancer". It's almost romantic. Kinda like when anti-angiogenesis drugs were all the rage a few years ago...
The "cancer vaccine" has been tried many times before. Pretty much every time the cancer finds a way around it. Sipuleucel-T is a commercially available cancer vaccine for prostate cancer. It adds a few months for $$$, but newer, non-vaccine treatments are now doing better.
We're unlikely to find "a" cure for cancer; we'll eventually find "cures" for cancer, but it will be small, incremental steps. In the meantime I'll go back to my clinic and continue to enrol patients on clinical trials
[+] [-] petra|10 years ago|reply
Considering that some results of treating early(by today's standards <2-3mm tumor) we can get to something like 95%-98% 5-years cancer free rates(while suffering some side effects), in breast cancer - it seems possible to make cancer a low-risk ,low-pain disease - as long as you do your regular checkups. Right ?
[+] [-] chrdlu|10 years ago|reply
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=H...
Summary: Cytotropic Heterogeneous Molecular Lipids (CHML) are used to treat patients with multiple cancers. Numerous studies have been conducted in cellular, animal, pre-clinical and clinical trials. Results showed that CHML, as a biological molecular missile, can easily penetrate through the target cancerous cells to perform programmed cancer cell death (cancer apoptosis). Furthermore, CHML has produced anti-cancer angiogenesis and induced immune function increase. CHML was used to treat 592 patients with cancers in clinical trials. Results confirmed the following advantages of CHML treatment: non-toxicity, high response rate, high quality of life, and high survival rate for these patients. The protocols include local injection, arterial drip and intravenous drip to treat cancers of liver, lung, skin, breast, brain glioma, colon and rectum, stomach, head and neck, leukemia, malignant lymphoma, sarcoma, malignant melanoma, myeloma, and metastasis cancers, etc.
Response rates (CR+PR) were as follows: liver cancer 77%, lung cancer 68%, skin cancer 94%, breast cancer 83%, brain glioma 78%, colon and rectum cancer 80%, stomach cancer 50%, head and neck cancer 78%, leukemia 83%, malignant lymphoma 71%, sarcoma 43%, malignant melanoma 67%, and myeloma 50%. No (0) episodes of grade II or above adverse reactions were observed.
[+] [-] Grishnakh|10 years ago|reply
I completely disagree. There will be a "cure", but it'll be a while, and it won't resemble current medicinal methods at all. I predict that in another century or so (assuming civilization doesn't collapse like the Roman Empire and send us into another Dark Age, but on a global scale), we'll basically become cyborgs, with nanites implanted in us to augment our natural bodily functions. These nanites, basically being nanoscale robots, would improve on or replace our immune systems, eliminating cancer, as well as most aging effects.
[+] [-] thecus|10 years ago|reply
Source: I stayed at a holiday inn.
[+] [-] teekert|10 years ago|reply
However, it is the only real curative treatment next to surgery and really the only treatment that can cure metastatic cancer. At the moment though, only in small percentage of people with specific cancers (mostly melanoma, skin cancers.) So there certainly is reason to be excited, the cancer field is all over this at the moment so advances in the near future can be expected.
[+] [-] iolothebard|10 years ago|reply
When the cancer gets to stage 4, you're looking at when not if the cancer is going to kill you. So to everyone you know that doesn't get regular checkups, encourage them to do so. Both my parents have had cancer but it was caught early, my mother in law never went to a doctor after having her last kid ~25 years ago.
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
That would be the interview at http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35585571. We changed the URL to a text version of the story.
[+] [-] esturk|10 years ago|reply
People don't realize the significance but 10% is a lot. Simply because there's so many cancer cases, 10% can already save millions.
[+] [-] forgotpwagain|10 years ago|reply
This is currently a research frontiers area--but in 10-20 years, I believe that we will have made significant inroads on it.
[+] [-] nonbel|10 years ago|reply
Are people really ok with this practice of researchers talking about their discoveries without having shared the methods and data (I don't care so much about the review aspect)? I'm certainly not, but apparently many think this is acceptable for some reason because I don't see any pushback.
[+] [-] tominous|10 years ago|reply
I haven't seen the presentation about the study (a related news briefing is here [1]) so I don't know whether you're correct to say that the researchers haven't shared their methods and data. They seem quite happy to share technical details at the news briefing.
However, regardless of that, I still think it is a good thing if researchers talk about their findings at an early stage, especially if the findings are as dramatic and positive as these. If a treatment is available and you have patients out there dying with no other options, then it is just wrong to hide that away.
In my opinion we treat these things far too cautiously. It is not optimal for the individual and it is not optimal for society. By sharing /and/ opening up options like this to terminally ill patients we can (a) save individual lives and (b) speed up development and refinement of new treatments to benefit everyone.
The problem is that the incentives we have in place treat a cancer death as acceptable, while a treatment-related death is unacceptable for researchers, doctors and drug companies (unless they are shielded by layers of clinical-trial bureaucracy or years of standard practice). The result is that the course of treatment doesn't properly weigh the different sources of risk. Whether the goal is quality-adjusted life years for an individual patient or faster development of effective and safe treatments, the current system is way too conservative.
[1] http://www.eurekalert.org/aaasnewsroom/2016/webcast/?b=38
[+] [-] mbreese|10 years ago|reply
This technique is actually fairly well known and other groups are running similar trials. So this isn't some black box. There is a long history of peer-reviewed publications that got us to this point. The basic science behind these techniques has already been published. This is just the next step - presenting the clinical trial data for these studies.
[+] [-] mchahn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forgotpwagain|10 years ago|reply
With solid tumors, you have to deal with the complexities of the tumor microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment is the complex environment of the cancer tumor tissue. Of particular note, decreased lymphatic drainage, increased connective tissue, and aberrant angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels) create very high interstitial fluid pressures within the tumor, limiting the ability of drugs or cells to penetrate within the tumor and "work their magic" by reaching the cells/target molecules of interest, etc.
Blood cancers are a good proof-of-principle for many cancer therapies; translation to solid tumors is difficult (see challenges with CAR-T cell immunotherapy).
As for gene manipulation in blood--yes, it is relatively easy to manipulate genes in blood. Hematopoetic Stem Cells (which differentiate into all different kinds of blood cells) can be withdrawn without too much difficulty, manipulated in the lab, and then reinjected into the patient.
[+] [-] teekert|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dschiptsov|10 years ago|reply