Good news on the cancer front

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Gob
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Good news on the cancer front

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A new cancer treatment can wipe out tumours in terminally ill head and neck cancer patients, scientists have discovered.

In a landmark trial, a cocktail of immunotherapy medications harnessed patients’ immune systems to kill their own cancer cells and prompted “a positive trend in survival”, according to researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust.

One patient, who was expected to die four years ago, told the Guardian of the “amazing” moment nurses called him weeks after he joined the study to say his tumour had “completely disappeared”. The 77-year-old grandfather is now cancer-free and spent last week on a cruise with his wife.

Scientists found the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab medications led to a reduction in the size of tumours in terminally ill head and neck cancer patients. In some, their cancer vanished altogether, with doctors stunned to find no detectable sign of disease.


Combining the two immunotherapy drugs could prove an effective new weapon against several forms of advanced cancer, experts believe. Results from other trials of the drug combination have previously suggested similar benefits for terminally ill kidney, skin and bowel cancer patients.

As well as boosting the long-term survival chances of patients, scientists said, the immunotherapy treatment also triggered far fewer side-effects compared with the often gruelling nature of “extreme” chemotherapy, which is the standard treatment offered to many patients with advanced cancer.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

ex-khobar Andy
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Location: Louisville KY as of July 2018

Re: Good news on the cancer front

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Further down that piece it says this:
Despite the lack of statistical significance, these results are clinically meaningful,” said Prof Kevin Harrington, professor of biological cancer therapies at the ICR and consultant clinical oncologist at the Royal Marsden, who led the CheckMate 651 trial. “We will need to do longer follow-up to see whether we can demonstrate a survival benefit across all patients in the trial.” (My underlining.)
Statistical significance usually means - do the stats and get a p value of less than 0.05 - i.e., it is 95% certain that this is a real effect and not random. I think 'clinically meaningful' is a lesser hurdle - maybe p only calculated out at say 0.08 because it was too small a study - but doctors and patients agree that there is some benefit (survival rate, for example). Maybe what we used to call 'suggestive.' Here's a handy guide from xkcd:

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Gob
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Re: Good news on the cancer front

Post by Gob »

I like that!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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