If it makes you feel any better, the 5-year survival rate for all cancers combined has increased from 50% to 67% in the last 50 years, and there has been significant improvement in every single cancer category (except uterine cancer) which implies that the improved treatments have not been restricted to only a few rich people, but that therapeutic improvements have been more widespread.

Neat! BIG BOY! That is really cool.

I appreciate your knowledge on the subject!

I have a biology PhD but I'm not a cancer specialist by any means. I just try to read the actual science whenever an article like this gets posted to reddit to give a more realistic assessment of the findings.

Thanks. It says in the article 30% of AML for NPM1, I misread it. Also 5-15% of "acute leukemias" for KMT2A rearrangements.

It's always that way.

As a scientist, we work extremely hard only to be undermined by reporters who cause the public to lose faith in scientists.

Scientist: Our clinical trial for a new therapy saw 18 of 60 patients get complete remission. We would have expected about 6 of 60, so this is an improvement.

Clickbait article: New therapy sees cancer VANISH in 18 patients.

Scientist: 😥

Public: OMG HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE HEARD "SCIENTIST CURES CANCER" ITS ALL LIES AND BULLSHIT

Scientist: 😞

I read the actual paper.

It achieved complete remission with hematopoietic recovery in 18 of 60 (30%) patients, and remission without hematopoietic recovery (so still likely need a bone marrow transplant) in another 5 of 60 (8%), and "morphological leukemia free state" (leukemia treated, but not cured?) in 9 of 60 (15%). So very positive results in 32 of 60 (53%).

There was no response in 19 of 60 (32%), worsened disease in 7 of 60 (12%), and 2 of 60 (3%) were not reported on.

This drug only works on KMT2Ar and NPM1 variants of leukemia, which make up about 10% and 30% of all leukemias, respectively.

The rate of complete remission for the KMT2Ar is normally 9% with usual treatment, but 33% with the drug in this trial.

The results for survival time were written in a slightly confusing way, but I think the median survival time was 7 months for all patients regardless of remission status. I have no idea why they didn't split up the survival curves between those in remission vs those not in remission.

TLDR: Incremental improvements that might help increase remission rates in some leukemia patients with 2 specific gene mutations comprising 40% of leukemia cases, but it's not a miracle drug.