7 ms·

New Radiotracer Can Identify Nearly 30 Types of Cancer

256 points by howard941 7y ago

PureTruth2 7y ago
There are no 30 types of cancer. Or 200, or 2. The catalog of cancer types is all marketing to sell a variety of treatments and products. Cancer is damaged cells. The "type" is simply a reference to their location. It doesn't matter where the "cancer" is. It's there because that's where the lymphatic system is backed up from the acidic state of the body. The Modern Medicine cartel has no answers, just more acid hits in the form of chemo, radiation, etc. While the solution is rather simple, and include an intake of organic ripe fruits combined with periods of water and dry fasting and about 15 or so herbs. Also highly effective against tumors is Aronia + Grape juice fasting.
Jolter 7y ago
That CT image of the breast cancer patient... Ouch. Not easy to look at.
- steve_adams_86 7y ago
  This happened to my mom when she had breast cancer. I wonder if this is a normal progression with that type of cancer? I have no idea why they did it, but they did do an autopsy when she died and her doctor basically said she was riddled with tumours throughout her entire body (she lived 7 years with cancer after diagnosis, who knows how long before). When I saw these images that's immediately what I thought of. It's very unsettling.
- SubiculumCode 7y ago
  The whole panel scared the shit out of me. Fuck cancer.
Randypea 7y ago
I was diagnosed with NET cancer recently and my doctor incorrectly ordered the older radiotracer scan. It only showed 1/2 of my tumors, missing the most important primary tumor. This newer scan/radiotracer showed double the number of tumors including the most important step of finding the primary. I will soon have cytoreduction surgery to remove the tumors. Unless you have other biomarkers showing cancer, the issue for this scan is cost - $2-5K. You would not do it casually. Contact me if you want to see a side by side comparison of this new scan beside an older one.
- lipman 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing. You got FDG PET ("older") as well as FAPI? Are you in the US? Curious if FAPI is already in wide use.... does FDG not work that well for NET ?
  - Randypea 7y ago
    I am in the US and FDG PET does not work for NET. The "older" scan was Pet radiolabeled with indium-111. Comparison is here: http://prntscr.com/o02jsg http://prntscr.com/o02jsg Left is the newer scan, which uses Gallium 68. The primary tumor is uppermost right side, liver metastasis is left side, and small lower lighted up areas are lymph nodes. All will be removed soon. Lit up area below is the radiotracer in my bladder before urinating. :-)
    - lipman 7y ago
      Good luck with the surgery! You probably got Octreoscan which is used for NET - it's SPECT imaging which is generally worse that PET, but (until now) there wasn't a good PET tracer that works in NET. Awesome to hear a story of how this new tracer could really help patients.
      - orr721 7y ago
        Sorry, this is not true. 68Ga-labelled DOTATOC, DOTANOC, and DOTATATE are used diagnosis and therapy of NETs for more than 10 years. They are widely available in Europe and in some major US centers. If the new 68Ga-FAPI will be better remains to be seen, I suppose the Heidelberg group will publish some research soon.
        Randypea 7y ago
        You are correct it's only in the last several years this Gallium 68 scan has been available in the US, but was available in Europe long before - like many cancer treatments.
        7y ago
legohead 7y ago
Anyone have any experience getting tested for cancer when marked as "healthy"? I contacted my PCP and some other random places asking to get a cancer screening and nobody would give me the time of day - "that's not done". At most they said they would do a blood test which checks for a couple types of cancer. I asked if I could get a CT and have a professional go over it. nope. But something like this tracer is what I'd like to do.
- docker_up 7y ago
  Why is this not available? It's ridiculous that we can't do this conveniently. All I read about is new tests and detections, etc and they are only available when it's too late. Things like pancreatic cancer and liver cancer are death sentences and on the rise. Why can't we test for this sooner rather than later?
- ascar 7y ago
  Out of curiosity: What would you be willing to pay for it? Did you mention you pay yourself? Or do you expect your healthcare provider to cover the thousands of dollars for tests without any indication?
  - asdf21 7y ago
    Hospitals don't want people to "pay themselves" when they can bill insurance companies 10x as much.
    - iooi 7y ago
      Not sure why you think that, hospitals charge insurers a lot less than their sticker price. Pricing is usually done as multiples of what Medicare pays, so insurers will build their network and usually have a cap at 2x Medicare. If you are taken to an out-of-network hospital during an emergency, the hospital can charge their regular prices, although this usually gets negotiated down for extended in-patient stays. As an uninsured individual, however, you would be liable for the complete amount, which is a lot more than what the insurance pays.
childintime 7y ago
Really impressive images with apparently regular PET-scans, so could be available for general use rather quickly. It's advances like this that enable medicine.
hsavit1 7y ago
Have been chatting with a radiation oncologist about this. His response: "imaging appears to be the same as F18-FDG-based PET. Just a bit more convenient since the patient doesn't need a normal blood sugar. And prob 2-10x the price"
- lipman 7y ago
  Seems like in certain tumor types it's better than FDG - still looking into it myself. Is FAPI available in the US already?
- mbrundle 7y ago
  At first glance, this new tracer seems to yield a lower normal tissue uptake, and the reduced background signal could make it easier to locate tumours. FDG gets taken up by several organs inc heart and brain, whereas this tracer doesn’t appear to do so to that extent.
- sllrp 7y ago
  The great advantage of these tracers is that they target actual structures over-expressed in cancers, which means they show far higher specificity than something like FDG. That means they can be used to find micrometastases, and with a different radio-label also be applied for highly targeted radiation therapy. Source: I used to work in the Heidelberg lab that published this study.
Ice_cream_suit 7y ago
Classic example of marketing to the naive ....

256 points by howard941 7y ago

There are no 30 types of cancer. Or 200, or 2. The catalog of cancer types is all marketing to sell a variety of treatments and products. Cancer is damaged cells. The "type" is simply a reference to their location. It doesn't matter where the "cancer" is. It's there because that's where the lymphatic system is backed up from the acidic state of the body. The Modern Medicine cartel has no answers, just more acid hits in the form of chemo, radiation, etc. While the solution is rather simple, and include an intake of organic ripe fruits combined with periods of water and dry fasting and about 15 or so herbs. Also highly effective against tumors is Aronia + Grape juice fasting.

Jolter 7y ago

That CT image of the breast cancer patient... Ouch. Not easy to look at.

steve_adams_86 7y ago
This happened to my mom when she had breast cancer. I wonder if this is a normal progression with that type of cancer? I have no idea why they did it, but they did do an autopsy when she died and her doctor basically said she was riddled with tumours throughout her entire body (she lived 7 years with cancer after diagnosis, who knows how long before). When I saw these images that's immediately what I thought of. It's very unsettling.
SubiculumCode 7y ago
The whole panel scared the shit out of me. Fuck cancer.

Randypea 7y ago

I was diagnosed with NET cancer recently and my doctor incorrectly ordered the older radiotracer scan. It only showed 1/2 of my tumors, missing the most important primary tumor. This newer scan/radiotracer showed double the number of tumors including the most important step of finding the primary. I will soon have cytoreduction surgery to remove the tumors. Unless you have other biomarkers showing cancer, the issue for this scan is cost - $2-5K. You would not do it casually. Contact me if you want to see a side by side comparison of this new scan beside an older one.

lipman 7y ago
Thanks for sharing. You got FDG PET ("older") as well as FAPI? Are you in the US? Curious if FAPI is already in wide use.... does FDG not work that well for NET ?
- Randypea 7y ago
  I am in the US and FDG PET does not work for NET. The "older" scan was Pet radiolabeled with indium-111. Comparison is here: http://prntscr.com/o02jsg http://prntscr.com/o02jsg Left is the newer scan, which uses Gallium 68. The primary tumor is uppermost right side, liver metastasis is left side, and small lower lighted up areas are lymph nodes. All will be removed soon. Lit up area below is the radiotracer in my bladder before urinating. :-)
  - lipman 7y ago
    Good luck with the surgery! You probably got Octreoscan which is used for NET - it's SPECT imaging which is generally worse that PET, but (until now) there wasn't a good PET tracer that works in NET. Awesome to hear a story of how this new tracer could really help patients.
    - orr721 7y ago
      Sorry, this is not true. 68Ga-labelled DOTATOC, DOTANOC, and DOTATATE are used diagnosis and therapy of NETs for more than 10 years. They are widely available in Europe and in some major US centers. If the new 68Ga-FAPI will be better remains to be seen, I suppose the Heidelberg group will publish some research soon.
      - Randypea 7y ago
        You are correct it's only in the last several years this Gallium 68 scan has been available in the US, but was available in Europe long before - like many cancer treatments.
      - 7y ago

legohead 7y ago

Anyone have any experience getting tested for cancer when marked as "healthy"? I contacted my PCP and some other random places asking to get a cancer screening and nobody would give me the time of day - "that's not done". At most they said they would do a blood test which checks for a couple types of cancer. I asked if I could get a CT and have a professional go over it. nope. But something like this tracer is what I'd like to do.

docker_up 7y ago
Why is this not available? It's ridiculous that we can't do this conveniently. All I read about is new tests and detections, etc and they are only available when it's too late. Things like pancreatic cancer and liver cancer are death sentences and on the rise. Why can't we test for this sooner rather than later?
ascar 7y ago
Out of curiosity: What would you be willing to pay for it? Did you mention you pay yourself? Or do you expect your healthcare provider to cover the thousands of dollars for tests without any indication?
- asdf21 7y ago
  Hospitals don't want people to "pay themselves" when they can bill insurance companies 10x as much.
  - iooi 7y ago
    Not sure why you think that, hospitals charge insurers a lot less than their sticker price. Pricing is usually done as multiples of what Medicare pays, so insurers will build their network and usually have a cap at 2x Medicare. If you are taken to an out-of-network hospital during an emergency, the hospital can charge their regular prices, although this usually gets negotiated down for extended in-patient stays. As an uninsured individual, however, you would be liable for the complete amount, which is a lot more than what the insurance pays.

childintime 7y ago

Really impressive images with apparently regular PET-scans, so could be available for general use rather quickly. It's advances like this that enable medicine.

hsavit1 7y ago

Have been chatting with a radiation oncologist about this. His response: "imaging appears to be the same as F18-FDG-based PET. Just a bit more convenient since the patient doesn't need a normal blood sugar. And prob 2-10x the price"

lipman 7y ago
Seems like in certain tumor types it's better than FDG - still looking into it myself. Is FAPI available in the US already?
mbrundle 7y ago
At first glance, this new tracer seems to yield a lower normal tissue uptake, and the reduced background signal could make it easier to locate tumours. FDG gets taken up by several organs inc heart and brain, whereas this tracer doesn’t appear to do so to that extent.
sllrp 7y ago
The great advantage of these tracers is that they target actual structures over-expressed in cancers, which means they show far higher specificity than something like FDG. That means they can be used to find micrometastases, and with a different radio-label also be applied for highly targeted radiation therapy. Source: I used to work in the Heidelberg lab that published this study.

Ice_cream_suit 7y ago

Classic example of marketing to the naive ....