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[deleted] t1_ivwvyze wrote

[removed]

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DMAN591 t1_ivwy6bq wrote

I'm sure it's offered as an experimental treatment to some terminal patients, with a few caveats and a stack of NDAs and waivers to sign.

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personAAA t1_ivx3pl0 wrote

Cancer is not a death sentence. There are some terminal cancers that killed, but not the majority.

Cancer is a collection of diseases. Some more serious than others.

Prognosis of any cancer varies a lot. The key things are location, tissue of origin, and cancer genotype.

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hurfery t1_ivzf2m7 wrote

Untreated cancer is 100% always a death sentence though, right?

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personAAA t1_iw00vrt wrote

No.

For some cancers, better to just watch and wait than treat them. Don't take the therapy side effects for low grade cancer that is localizing, non to very slow spread, not impacting any function. Monitor the cancer to see if anything changes.

Cancer likelihood increases with age. For a really old patient, very possible to find with advanced imaging small cancers. Not worth treating and those are not going to kill the patient. They are low grade, not impacting function and more of we only founded it due to imaging. Patient is going to die from something else. Patient is going to die with cancer than from it.

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CultCrossPollination t1_ivxedlg wrote

Because we need to know for sure it works in humans. And how much, and in what conditions. Otherwise our application of medicines becomes totally random and divorced from knowledge and will cause unnecessary suffering. It is essential to have minimally a double blind controlled clinical trial with the new treatment to determine the effectiveness.

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Environmental_Cake97 t1_ivy72t8 wrote

I wouldn’t want to be in the placebo arm of this one. Dying anyway? Targets the tumor macro environment to make engineered T cells I’m already getting more effective?

The worst it could do, the very worst, is have the opposite effect of that intended. It’s a risk I’d be happy to take.

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CultCrossPollination t1_ivyqawb wrote

In these kind of clinical trials they always use the standard of care medicine as "negative control". placebo is considered unethical. The patients involved are always considered "end of care", so previous treatments have failed to contain an endless growth of the tumors.

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Rainbow334dr t1_ivyk2xb wrote

You can still do any test you want and have all the studies you want but people who are months away from dying should be able to take the chance. Better than sending them to some witch doctor that has no chance of working.

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ikingrpg t1_ivxdq5c wrote

I mean that's why people sign up for these studies/trials.

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Rainbow334dr t1_ivykwzf wrote

They should be able to get the vaccine not a placebo. How would you like to get the six months to live diagnosis and be told we have an experimental vaccine but we have to save more rats before you can have it.

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