Deflation

Here's another exciting new headline: Unlikely drug may block breast cancer in high-risk women. But then as you read it, you end up feeling deflated. Why? Because you find out at the end that it will take 10 years before the results of clinical trials will be available. And that it is based on a very small research pool. 

But here goes. So a drug, denosumab (or Prolia) used to to treat osteoporosis appears to prevent growth of breast cancer in high risk (read BRCA1+) women. This could be a prevention strategy for this group of women. This sounds like fantastic news. 

"For the study, 33 samples of breast tissue with no BRCA1 mutations and 24 samples of breast tissue with the mutations were analyzed."

So its a little tiny group. I am not sure that I am too impressed with the size of this group. And that the results were published based on such a small group. 

You would think that since the drug is approved already it would be fairly quick to be available for this use but since the clinical trials will take so long to see if cancer growth is prevented it will take ten years to get through trials and then FDA approval, and then finally available. 

As the article concludes it might be a solution for future generations. I am just a little deflated as I went from high expectations to a long wait.