ASCO 2016

Next Friday, June 3, ASCO 2016 starts and runs through the weekend. So what? ASCO is the American Society of Clinical Oncology and each year at their annual meeting, all sorts of new research is announced and made available to the public. Usually I realize that ASCO is going on when its almost over so I am sort of proud of myself that for once I figured it out before it started.

What does this mean to the average cancer person? Not much unless you want to find out about the latest in cancer research. Personally I try to keep up on all the advances that relate to me. I recommend it to others to go through.

You can follow the information on asco.org. Some of the biggest advances actually are available in the news as they can be that significant.

My 2 cents for the day.

Gene editing to cure cancer

Okay, I admit I know about the 'genome project' but have basically ignored it because I did not understand much about it. And I still don't understand much about it. But because of what was learned about genomes and genes, there have been advances in what can now be done to treat cancer and other diseases.

So there is a little girl in England who was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) shortly after her birth that was very aggressive and recurred seven weeks after treatment ended. They ran out of treatment options and as a last ditch effort, they used a gene editing tool to save her life. Since the treatment four months ago, she is doing well and is at home with her parents.

I don't really understand it well enough to explain it all. But you can read about it here.

Its too soon to tell if this is actually the cure that was hoped for and what the long term effects will be. There is  no way of telling if this could some day work for more children with cancer.

What I do find interesting is that this represents a big advancement in cancer treatment and represents the first steps in what the future could be.

What if there was no more chemo?

We have heard this one before where doctors do something to your T cells so they kill off the cancer cells. But we have always heard the infamous 'but more research is needed'. Well how about this?



The took a teenager's T cells and engineered them and put them back in his system and now he shows no signs of cancer. I'm all for this type of treatment. Getting rid of the poison part of the slash, poison, burn of traditional cancer treatment.

For more thoughts on medical advances that are blazing the way for the future read this.

Now from the professional cancer patient's take on this. I think it sounds great. But, and there is a big fat 'but' here, this was done on a young, relatively healthy teenager with leukemia. How would that impact me the thyroid/breast cancer with multiple other ailments? Probably not so much. I have not found a single clinical trial for which I would be eligible for any of my ailments. The reason for this is I have so many other ailments, no clinical trial wants me.However I do not think this would be any help to me if I was ever diagnosed with a similar cancer because my immune system is a disaster from rheumatoid and its treatment.

So I am pleased that this advancement has happened and may be blazing the way for 'cures' for some more cancers for some people. But I still don't have the warm fuzzies on what it could do for me.

Progress with a certain degree of ickiness

Would you walk around with wires sticking out of the top of your head which is covered in bandages? I am not as concerned about how I look but the idea of wires sticking out of my head. And you have to change the transducers every three or four days. Hence the ick factor.

Glioblastomas are nasty brain tumors, the type that killed Senator Ted Kennedy. They are not easily treatable. These new devices use electromagnetic fields to control the tumor cells.

"The sophisticated system involves covering a shaved scalp with insulated electrical transducers, which transform electricity into electromagnetic energy. The transducer devices are affixed to the skin with wide overlapping bandages, giving the appearance of a high-tech shower cap. 

Electromagnetic fields — generated from electricity produced via a 6-pound battery pack that patients carry on their backs — pass through the skull and brain tissue, and target rapidly reproducing tumor cells, disrupting their delicate process of cell division.

The electromagnetic fields don’t damage the brain’s healthy neurons and anatomical structures because those structures are not undergoing cell division. The fields exert force on proteins — which become electrically charged when the tumor cell is in the process of dividing — and that halts the cell division and destroys the cancer cells."

So you have to carry around a six pound battery pack. That alone would slow me down with my bad back. The other problem is it costs, brace yourself, $21,000 each month. And currently Medicare and many insurers won't pay for it.

However the manufacturer expects, but is not guaranteed, FDA approval in the next year or so. But there is no guarantee of any insurance coverage in the future. To me there is the ick factor and the idea of big brother watching what you are thinking through your brain cells...

Medical advances come at a cost

We hear about these great new advances in medicine that are finally released on the market. Maybe its a new drug, a new test, a new device. It doesn't really matter. It is hailed as progress. But progress often comes at a cost - we are slowly learning.

When any medical advance comes with a price tag, the question is then who pays? It comes from one of two places - the patient's pocket through a higher payment or through the insurers pocket which really means all of us pay for it.

So new diabetes pumps were introduced that offer more features, blah, blah, blah. The medical device marketing companies promote them heavily to patients. Each one costs $2500 and has a planned obsolescence every three years. Insurance companies will replace them every four years.

Diabetes is not an inexpensive disease. Patients with insurance spend more than $4000 annually even with insurance. Another $20,000 plus is covered by insurance (or the rest of us). This is called progress.

What kills me about this in an age where recycle/reuse has become more and more important, why are companies introducing something that has a planned obsolescence in three years? Wouldn't it be better to create something that might be upgradable and would last ten years? Thus reducing costs for all of us.

So every time we hear about a new medical device, tests, medication or whatever, we need to ask ourselves - what is the cost? Being covered by insurance is not the right answer.

The real answer should be: the per patient cost per dose/year of coverage is $X so we can see the real cost. Transparency should be required for all new advances and all new developments in the pipeline should have a plan for end patient cost that is justifiable and medical devices should focus on long term use instead of planned obsolescence.

Stem cells anyone

I am not a biochemist or anything, nor am I a medical professional. So I do not pretend to understand everything about this kind of scientific stuff. But I do realize this is a major breakthrough.

Someone discovered how to make stem cells cheaply and easily.

The genial 63-year-old anesthesiologist who left stem cell scientists shaking their heads in wonder and puzzlement last week, with the discovery that a simple acid bath could be used to generate powerful stem cells, doesn’t even have a PhD.

I read about this earlier this week when I read this article that said it was essentially a 30 minute acid bath and voila, stem cells.

From the little I know, I still consider this big news.

But also it shows how research can go in the wrong direction for years and for billions of dollars. Not just for stem cells but for anything. It just took a new pair of eyes to figure out what other people had been trying to figure out for so long.

Now we need more progress....