[HN Gopher] Breast cancer drug trial: Woman given months to live...
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Breast cancer drug trial: Woman given months to live told she is
cancer free
Author : iamben
Score : 99 points
Date : 2022-07-04 11:29 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| krageon wrote:
| Is this intellectually interesting and if so, what am I missing?
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Intellectual curiosity
| amluto wrote:
| It would be nice if the article said _which_ experimental
| drug was used.
| ok123456 wrote:
| A monocolony antibody.
| ma2t wrote:
| The article doesn't give details, but one of the quoted
| authors has participated in trials testing anti-ICOS
| antibody alone or in combination with atezolizumab, with
| results presented at an ASCO meeting: https://ascopubs.org/
| doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2021.39.15_suppl.26...
|
| Describes one complete response in TNBC (and 4 partial
| responses in TNBC and other cancers). Couldn't find a
| related peer-reviewed journal article on very quick search.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I have not heard of anti-ICOS (Inducible costimulatory
| receptor) before. Seems specific to TME.
|
| KY1044 with mouse models (different authors):
|
| https://aacrjournals.org/cancerimmunolres/article/8/12/15
| 68/...
|
| KY1044 I think is Kymab in Cambridge:
|
| https://www.kymab.com/pipeline/ky1044/
| ma2t wrote:
| Yes, Sanofi licensed from Kymab. There are a few groups
| targeting ICOS/ICOSL to modulate immune response to tumor
| (either alone or in combo with PD-1, CTLA-4, etc
| approaches previously mentioned on HN). Here's one
| reasonably recent backgrounder on rationale:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7003380/
|
| Still not clear that KY1044 really is the "experimental
| drug" mentioned in the linked BBC article, since as
| others have noted the article is pretty thin on detail.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| It does. It's right there. Did you read the article?
| elromulous wrote:
| It doesn't. Did _you_ read the article?
|
| > an experimental medicine combined with Atezolizumab, an
| immunotherapy drug.
|
| Atezolizumab is not the experimental drug, it's an
| already approved drug. The drug in question is the
| unnamed drug it was combined with.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Huh. It was there earlier. I can't remember what it said,
| a something-mab, so monoclonal antibody. I wonder why the
| BBC did a wee ninja-edit? Legal reasons?
| amluto wrote:
| Yes.
|
| > experimental medicine combined with Atezolizumab, an
| immunotherapy drug
|
| Atezolizumab is an approved anti-PD-L1 monoclonal
| antibody. What's the experimental medicine?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Seems to have been ninja-edited. It was there earlier.
| bbarn wrote:
| What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
| interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If
| you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be:
| anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
|
| Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports,
| unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
| Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If
| they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
| xeromal wrote:
| The best way to remove something you disagree with is to flag
| it. If enough have flagged, it will go away. If not, you're
| probably in the minority.
| bryan0 wrote:
| I think they were honestly asking what they were missing with
| this article, not necessarily that it should be removed. I
| had the same question.
| randcraw wrote:
| I agree. There are zillions of stories like this every day.
| This one does not belong on HN.
| more_corn wrote:
| Zillions?
| entropicgravity wrote:
| BBC probably has a good reason for publishing this article as
| opposed to just another cancer spontaneous remission piece.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [deleted]
| Namari wrote:
| She underwent six months of chemotherapy and a mastectomy in
| April 2018, followed by 15 cycles of radiotherapy which cleared
| her body of cancer.
|
| But in October 2019 the cancer returned, and scans showed it had
| spread to her lung, lymph nodes and chest bone and she was told
| she had a poor prognosis. 'Horrible side effects'
|
| Two months later, the mother-of-two was offered a two-year trial
| at The Christie of an experimental medicine combined with
| Atezolizumab, an immunotherapy drug. Doctors have told her she is
| now showing no evidence of the disease.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Impressive story in line with the impressive efficacy of some
| immunotherapy candidates. However not every patient gets a
| miracle which is something the press is terrible at conveying
| agumonkey wrote:
| It's almost unbelievable to read about quick and clean
| solutions like these for cancer (especially with long history
| of treatment and relapse). Very uplifting.
| jsorrel wrote:
| Worth noting that "no evidence of disease" is not the same as
| cured. My mother was diagnosed with a moderately-aggressive
| terminal metastatic breast cancer and given months to live, but
| enjoyed a few years of high quality of life after her doctor
| cleared her with "no evidence of disease" thanks to an
| aggressive chemotherapy protocol. That was about 15 years ago.
| She passed just under 7 years from diagnosis.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Similar story here.
|
| My mom was diagnosed around 2003, extremely aggressive breast
| cancer, they gave her around 9 months as I recall.
|
| It went into remission. Treatment was very effective. Her
| doctor had no idea how such an aggressive cancer was put into
| remission so quickly.
|
| Around 3 years later it was back despite routine checks and
| her being clear of cancer. This time it was everywhere very
| suddenly, yet it took 4 years to kill her. Such an awful way
| to go.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Is it even possible to prove you are completely cancer free?
| Or is that like proving a negative?
| florbo wrote:
| Possible? Sure! Individual evaluation of every cell in your
| body is possible.
|
| Our capability to do so, however...
| elbigbad wrote:
| So it's not possible?
| nradov wrote:
| About 100% of older people have cancer. It's just that many
| of those cancers are tiny and slow growing, such that they
| don't cause any serious clinical symptoms and often aren't
| even detectible with routine screening tests.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You'd have to come up with a definition of cancer free.
| Cells replicating poorly resulting in a cancerous single
| cell happens all the time and gets cleaned up.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| No, we don't have the technology. Once cancer cells are
| systemic (metastatic), they can end up in bone or brain,
| where it can be extremely difficult to detect or treat.
| Cancer cells only need one rogue cell, and takes about 2
| years to grow to a size that appears in tests.
|
| Sadly, cancer can also mutate to avoid the PD-L1 pathway.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| News site at The Christie: https://www.christie.nhs.uk/about-
| us/news-at-the-christie/la...
|
| Article (no specifics): https://www.christie.nhs.uk/about-
| us/news-at-the-christie/la...
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