This Hacker News discussion centers around a promising new cancer therapy, with participants expressing a range of emotions from hope and excitement to skepticism and caution. The conversation also touches upon the broader landscape of medical research, funding, and patient access.
Overwhelming Hope and Excitement for a Cancer Breakthrough
A significant theme is the profound hope and excitement generated by the study's early results. Many users expressed awe at the potential of the new treatment, particularly its ability to target multiple tumors with a single injection at one site.
- An enthusiast stated, "Bring it faster, I beg you."
- Commenting on the visual evidence, one user noted, "Look at the photos in the study that show the disappearing melanoma. Incredible."
- The potential impact of the breakthrough was highlighted: "If this is legit, it's a 'holy flipping s**' moment. That kind of success in Phase I human trials is incredibly rare."
- Another user drew a comparison to a highly successful existing drug: "Low toxicity, effective against many cancers, it's almost unbelievable. If clinical success holds in phase 2 and 3, this is the next Keytruda."
- The systemic effect of the therapy was particularly staggering: "The fact that they were only testing a tiny group of patients (to make sure the treatment would not do more harm than good) with such astonishing remissions for two different very aggressive cancer types warms my heart."
- The broad applicability of the treatment was also a point of excitement: "A 50% occurrence of systemic improvements across various cancer types is pretty great."
- One commenter summarized the sentiment of progress: "This feels like we are on the cusp of profound medical breakthroughs treatment of cancer. My thanks to everyone who contributes to this kind of medical and scientific progress."
- A key observation was made about the therapy's mechanism: "One of the hugely important takeaways of this study is that even though the therapy was applied at the site of the most significant tumor, the immune response appeared to trigger against presumably ALL tumors throughout the body."
Personal Stories of Hope and Loss Fueling the Discussion
The discussion is deeply personal for many, with users sharing their experiences with cancer treatment, both positive and devastating. These anecdotes add a layer of emotional weight to the technical aspects of the research.
- One user expressed solidarity with those undergoing treatment: "Ha. Living this. :("
- A user shared a deeply moving account of their wife's battle and how prior research paved the way for her treatment: "I remember that my wife said once that the everything she had on that journey was on the shoulders of those before. So maybe in some small way she helped with the research and a future mother, sister, wife, husband, son, dad will have hope where there was none."
- Another shared a positive outcome: "My sister was part of an immunotherapy trial years back. She was given weeks to live; the trial gave us years. Tailored medicine is truly a marvel."
- Conversely, a user shared a tragic experience: "My mother had immunotherapy treatment last year for lung cancer. It caused a lethal arrhythmia within 24 hours that they could not treat. She was dead by the end of that day. The cardiologist said this was a known side effect (he muttered 5% as she lay there). It's still not a perfect solution."
- The difficulty of cancer treatment and the risk/reward calculation were brought up: "What are the odds of chemo sucking every moment of joy out of your life and then you die anyway. I think I could deal with 20:1 odds if I had a clean before and after. Tell everyone you love them, hope to see them soon, then take your 95% chance of having an extra few years."
- A user whose wife passed away from melanoma expressed both sorrow and gratitude for the progress made: "I'm both sad and incredibly happy to read this. I lost my wife recently to a recurring metastatic melanoma. She was treated at MSK by an amazing team. It was a terrifying diagnosis and literally would have been a guaranteed death sentence in 2017. In 2023, she had a very real chance of pulling through due to immunotherapy. Unfortunately some complications led to the worst outcome and we lost an amazing woman."
- Another shared a similar sentiment about a different disease: "I lost my wife before they developed sickle cell treatments recently. Knowing the pain she went through everyday, makes me grateful that children soon will not have to know that pain. Thank you for sharing your story."
- A user facing melanoma treatment found solace in the shared stories: "I’m so sorry for your loss and thank you for sharing your wife’s story. As a husband, father, and son starting treatment for melanoma tomorrow, your words mean a lot. It’s humbling to think of how much today’s progress is owed to courage of those who came before."
Skepticism and Caution Regarding Early-Stage Research and Reporting
While the enthusiasm is palpable, a strong current of skepticism and caution runs through the thread, particularly concerning the early stage of the research and the potential for overhyped reporting.
- A user introduced skepticism about the Russian cancer vaccine claim: "Downvoted. The mental leaps to connect the two are very very large. If you distrust western medicine's process then let's discuss, but trying say we collectively shouldn't because 'look at Russia!' isn't it."
- Concerns about the reliability of information from Russia were raised: "Maybe this is just my Western sensibilities shining through, but is there reason to trust the reporting coming from Russia? I'm genuinely interested to know if that's just my own bias or if there's something to that."
- Another user pointed out the unreliability of media claims: "gbuk2013: It is mostly your own bias, yes. That said publications about cancer breakthroughs ought to be taken with at least as much salt as those in western mass media."
- Detailed investigation into the Russian claim suggested it was clickbait: "According to the registry of clinical trials (https://grls.rosminzdrav.ru) the ЭнтероМикс phase 1 trials run Nov 24 - Oct 26 so I strongly suspect this is scummy clickbait reporting,"
- A strong stance was taken against trusting Russian medical claims: "Is there any reason to believe in claims of medical breakthroughs in russia? No."
- The statistics of the reported results were critically examined: "Out of 12, only 6 saw their tumor shrink and 2 were tumor free. Thats 17% saw a complete response, 33% a partial response and 50% no response. It’s not particularly striking results, though any progress is welcome. University press releases aren’t exactly the most unbiased sources of scientific information."
- The tendency for university press releases to overhype findings was a recurring theme: "While promising, be VERY skeptical about efficacy claims of these early stage research drugs."
- The difficulty of drug development was emphasized: "Tons of drugs in the pipeline that goes after these promising receptor targets. PD-1/PD-L1, CD47, CD40 (as mentioned in the article) etc. Keytruda (PD-1) is an incredible success both clinically and commercially, but there are many many other drugs buried in the clinical trial cemetery that initially showed promising results. Medicine is really hard."
- This overhyping was seen as damaging: "The system is well broken, and the outcome of the over hype is the MAHA movement - people who have not understood the reporting really means 'We have found an interesting new avenue of research' not what they hear which is 'We've cured disease' which inevitably then leads to 'Science is false, they told me they could cure disease, but it didn't, eat more Vitamin C instead'"
- A user cautioned against drawing definitive conclusions from limited data: "It's not particularly striking results, though any progress is welcome. University press releases aren’t exactly the most unbiased sources of scientific information."
- The limited patient numbers in early trials were noted: "Worth noting that all 12 were already metastatic cancer patients, so they probably already had a rather low 5-year survival chance. I'm under the impression that seeing even a partial tumor response is pretty striking." and "I get the impression that the study involved about patients that normally have no chance of recovery. But it's worth noting the relatively low effectiveness means that someone who has the option of using an 'ordinary' treatment with a known, higher effectiveness should do so."
- The results were contextualized within previous treatments: "As others pointed out, these are stage I trials and these are patients that have had other treatments already. In particular the melanoma patients had already had other immunotherapy - which is known to work for 50+% of cases - so this could help plugging the gap for the rest."
Broader Systemic Issues: Funding, Access, and the Future of Medicine
Beyond the immediate implications of the study, users also discussed larger systemic issues affecting medical research and patient care, including funding, accessibility, and the role of AI.
- Concerns about future access were raised: "This is a good development. Who's going to have access to this medication if it comes to market? Will it be for the wealthy or will the poor have access to it?"
- The immediate response was pragmatic: "As with almost everything: first one, then the other."
- Cost of manufacture was identified as a factor in accessibility: "Some of it depends on the cost of manufacture. If it’s tailored to each individual and scaling it is difficult but the drug is effective then it’d likely be costly. If scalability is easy then it’ll be relatively affordable."
- The current climate for research funding was mentioned: "They're always looking for funding for their research, and the current climate is not the best."
- The importance of accurate reporting for funding was also brought up: "So a bad tite only confuse the layman, that after a few clickbait titles that disappear start to doubt that a university professor is more reliable than the guy from Ancient Aliens."
- The role of AI in accelerating cures was expressed with hope: "I'm watching companies like Deepmind with great interest. It's my hope that these AI tools speeds up a cure before it's too late."
- The perceived underfunding of public research was noted: "Defunding NIH and gutting the public research pipeline, best we can do."
The "Abscopal Effect" and Immune Response Mechanisms
A more technical discussion point revolved around the "abscopal effect," where treatment at one tumor site led to the regression of tumors elsewhere in the body, mediated by the immune system.
- The mechanism behind the systemic effect was explained: "2141-V11 induced regression in injected and non-injected lesions, correlating with systemic CD8+ T cell activation and mature tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) in complete responders."
- The ability of the therapy to promote "de novo TLS formation, facilitating i.t. CD8+ T cell effector responses independent of lymph node priming" was highlighted as a key finding.
- This phenomenon was described as promoting "systemic and durable antitumor immunity."