New cancer treatment?!

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is an article about a new treatment for cancer that seems to have potential.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35586834

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A therapy that retrains the body's immune system to fight cancer has provoked excitement after more than 90% of terminally ill patients reportedly went into remission.

White blood cells were taken from patients with leukaemia, modified in the lab and then put back.

But the data has not been published or reviewed and two patients are said to have died from an extreme immune response.

The lead scientist, Prof Stanley Riddell from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer research Centre in Seattle, said all other treatments had failed in these patients and they had only two-to-five months to live.

He told the conference that: "The early data is unprecedented."

Prof Riddell told the BBC: "Essentially what this process does is it genetically reprograms the T-cell to seek out and recognise and destroy the patient's tumour cells.

"[The patients] were really at the end of the line in terms of treatment options and yet a single dose of this therapy put more than ninety percent of these patients in complete remission where we can't detect any of these leukaemia cells."

But one cancer expert told me they still felt in the dark on the full significance of the study as the data is not available.

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Could be an important breakthrough.

Cheers.

Sriram

[jeremyp]

Exciting news, but the downside is that the cure for cancer will lead to an increase in deaths from other causes.

[Brownie]

Cancer is certainly not the killer it was at one time though it does depend on the type of cancer and where the primary is.

The proposed new treatment sounds quite dangerous to me. The idea of dying from an extreme immune reaction is not nice.   Atm steroids are frequently given to boost the immune system and some people have reacted badly to those, very unpleasant that is too.  However I should not be so gloomily cautious.

This treatment is specifically proposed for sufferers of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, not for other cancers.  It is a particularly aggressive disease in adults, children have a far higher recovery rate.  I do hope it is successful in those for whom all else is ineffective.

[Hope]

Apparently, "two patients are said to have died from an extreme immune response".  Is there an 'acceptable' failure rate for this kind of process, or does the fact that the guinea pigs were effectively in the last chance salon make such failures less relevant.  Please note, I'm not trying to diss the science; I've had a heavy day - job interview at lunch, JobCentre appointment as soon after the interview as possible (and 30-odd miles apart), followed by a railway board meeting this evening - leading to brain strain/frazzle.

[Nearly Sane]

Apparently, "two patients are said to have died from an extreme immune response".  Is there an 'acceptable' failure rate for this kind of process, or does the fact that the guinea pigs were effectively in the last chance salon make such failures less relevant.  Please note, I'm not trying to diss the science; I've had a heavy day - job interview at lunch, JobCentre appointment as soon after the interview as possible (and 30-odd miles apart), followed by a railway board meeting this evening - leading to brain strain/frazzle.

These are terminal patients who died.

This sort of experimention is fully signed off by their participants.

[Nearly Sane]

And to note, that stopping this experiment would mean that those saved by it, are also a cost. Doing nothing isn't harm neutral.

[Bubbles]

Hope

The alternative is dying from the treatment currently on offer, which also has some pretty awful side effects, baldness probably being the milder of them.

People react to penici llin, and have died from a reaction to it.

It's still useful

[L.A.]

It's an exciting development and potentially could lead to successful treatment for a whole range of cancers, but as has been pointed out, you have got to die of something and cancer is not necessarily the worst option.

[Leonard James]

It's an exciting development and potentially could lead to successful treatment for a whole range of cancers, but as has been pointed out, you have got to die of something and cancer is not necessarily the worst option.

Sadly, we don't get to choose!

[L.A.]

Sadly, we don't get to choose!

Not necessarily

http://www.dignitas.ch/?lang=en

[Leonard James]

Not necessarily

http://www.dignitas.ch/?lang=en

My post addresses yours, where you say :-

"It's an exciting development and potentially could lead to successful treatment for a whole range of cancers, but as has been pointed out, you have got to die of something and cancer is not necessarily the worst option."

We don't get any choice when it comes to terminal afflictions. Fate decides!

[Hope]

I'm fully aware that death comes to us all, and that these were terminal patients in the first place, but are people saying that there is no ethical structure that says that X deaths are too many?

[Bubbles]

I'm fully aware that death comes to us all, and that these were terminal patients in the first place, but are people saying that there is no ethical structure that says that X deaths are too many?

Not with terminal cancer patients if not having the treatment means certain death, no.

To be able to give those people a chance is what is ethical I would have thought.

You can react seriously to anything including eggs.

Which is why they always ask when they give you a flu jab.

I would have thought withholding a possible treatment because they might react to it, would be unethical 

Because you have the potential to cure them, but don't.

The patient should have some say, it's what's left of his/her life after all.