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by datakan10 hours ago |
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upvoteby canucker20169 hours ago|
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Matt Bencke's pancreatic cancer story has stuck with me.

First sign in May, followed by several doctor visits which treat the symptoms.

In late July, he heads to the ER. Multiple tests later, he and his wife get the diagnosis.

He dies less than three months later.

see https://www.wired.com/story/the-day-i-found-out-my-life-was-...

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upvoteby ViktorRay9 hours ago|
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I had never heard of this story before. Thank you for sharing it.
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upvoteby canucker20168 hours ago|
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There's also Randy Pausch, who had pancreatic cancer, and The Last Lecture.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch#Cancer_and_death

CMU posted an HD version of his Last Lecture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayPMfopCe1g

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upvoteby jrapdx39 hours ago|
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FWIW it's commonly the case with cancers of abdominal organs: stomach, pancreas, liver, kidney, etc. These cancers are frequently not diagnosed until at an advanced stage. Symptoms tend to be nonspecific, overlap with ubiquitous conditions like constipation, gastritis.

A goal of research is improving early detection of these cancers but it's an uphill battle. It's difficult to increase providers' "index of suspicion" of seemingly "minor" complaints.

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upvoteby yepyeppers8 hours ago|
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That’s a generalization, pancreatic cancer is often extremely lethal, depending on the type and case the survival rate can be as or more grim than glioma. Bowel and urinary cancers including kidney cancer are often very treatable and survivable when discovered due to symptoms. I don’t think it’s helpful to group all abdominal cancers as being uniquely or especially bad or late discovered. Likewise for the particularly aggressive or advanced cancers these types of announcements and trials rarely translate to major changes in prognosis. More typical if there is any positive result it looks like additional weeks or at best months of aggressive treatments rather than significant ”cure” rates.
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upvoteby HedonicEscal8r8 hours ago|
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It can be disappointing to see that even a successful drug, like this one, is "only" extending life expectancy from 6.7 months to 13.2. But this is what the first steps towards a cure look like.

Childhood leukemia used to be overwhelmingly fatal, and early chemotherapy trials also only managed a couple months of remission. Researchers were even criticized for subjecting patients to harsh side effects to no apparent benefit. But thanks to that research, most patients are now cured; per capita death rates from childhood leukemia are down 14x from the 1950s, mostly driven by improved treatment.

Daraxonrasib is an incredible invention on a technical level, and a meaningful step forwards in the treatment of many cancers. We'll need a couple more equally incredible inventions to be able to cure pancreatic cancer.

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upvoteby freediddy4 hours ago|
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Moderna is testing an mRNA vaccine that might be useful against bladder and kidney cancers. Hopefully the same technology can be applied to pancreatic and liver cancers. Fingers crossed.
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upvoteby greenowl5 hours ago|
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We are able to early detect these cancers right now with routine targeted imaging. Perhaps we should be working to solve or improve on the drawbacks associated with doing this, some of which are:

CT scans emit ionizing radiation.

MRI contrast can buildup and be retained in the body over repeated administrations.

The scans can produce false positives, surface benign abnormalities which result in a wild goose chase, cause severe patient anxiety and healthcare burden, and result in over-treatment.

And of course doing this on a whole population level is not cost or time effective.

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upvoteby freediddy4 hours ago|
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> And of course doing this on a whole population level is not cost or time effective.

It will never be cost or time effective if we never try. I'm paying out of pocket every year for an MRI scan, this was my second year this past year.

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upvoteby jr359210 hours ago|
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Absolutely terrible. As human beings, we should be prioritizing solving these kinds of problems. I don't think we need to live forever, but a graceful ending later in life remains an objective we haven't fully realized for everyone.
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upvoteby yepyeppers8 hours ago|
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We do. There’s something like half a billion dollars spent on pancreatic cancer research annually in the United States alone. It’s a giant money pit and that’s created an enormous body of research, increased understanding of the biology of the cancer and just how insidious it is, and funded the careers of thousands of scientists, technicians, academics and administrators, but very little of all this translates into better treatment outcomes. There’s no evidence than just pouring more money into cancer research is going to give us a miracle cure. There are competing priorities starved for funding to that we know can use meaningful help. Not incidentally some of those include financial aid, medical care and quality of life assistance for the actual patients and their families, as well as prevention.
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upvoteby jr35927 hours ago|
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good point
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