3 ms·

AMA. Thanks. I'm always wary of reading too much into articles about promising medical developments, because it seems like often the headlines look great but

AMA. Thanks. I'm always wary of reading too much into articles about promising medical developments, because it seems like often the headlines look great but they are actually referring to some relatively early stage of trials, so results of later trials might not be so good or even if they are it might still be a long time before the treatment is used routinely. However, in this case, the article reads as if this is literally a cure for (one sort of) cancer, with an 80% success rate, which can be done as an outpatient procedure with a relatively low risk of complications. That seems like about 80% of the holy grail, at least in terms of treating prostate cancer specifically. Can you give an expert perspective on how excited we should or shouldn't be about this result?

HorizonXP 7y ago
I just read the abstract, and I'd say we should be very excited about this result. When I left my Masters in 2012, the clinical trials being done still resulted in a prostatetectomy. Meaning, these generous men donated their time to allow us to use them as guinea pigs, yet received no benefit since their prostates were removed anyway. That did allow us to perform in-depth pathology reports about the efficacy of the treatment. This paper has 115 men that were treated and allowed to not have the surgery done, so this is the first time that we were able to see what the outcomes of the treatment truly are. Based on the results in the abstract, it looks like the hypothesis that men would be "cured" and have a better quality of life (i.e. no incontinence or sexual dysfunction) seems to be well-supported. More of these trials will need to occur before it becomes approved as a viable alternative to surgery. The big benefit though is that even if the the treatment fails to kill all of the cancer, it probably kills enough of it that you can go back to a watchful waiting approach, keep monitoring PSA levels and symptoms, and if anything was missed, follow up with full surgery. That is, surgery can become the last-ditch approach vs. being the only approach.

HorizonXP 7y ago

I just read the abstract, and I'd say we should be very excited about this result. When I left my Masters in 2012, the clinical trials being done still resulted in a prostatetectomy. Meaning, these generous men donated their time to allow us to use them as guinea pigs, yet received no benefit since their prostates were removed anyway. That did allow us to perform in-depth pathology reports about the efficacy of the treatment. This paper has 115 men that were treated and allowed to not have the surgery done, so this is the first time that we were able to see what the outcomes of the treatment truly are. Based on the results in the abstract, it looks like the hypothesis that men would be "cured" and have a better quality of life (i.e. no incontinence or sexual dysfunction) seems to be well-supported. More of these trials will need to occur before it becomes approved as a viable alternative to surgery. The big benefit though is that even if the the treatment fails to kill all of the cancer, it probably kills enough of it that you can go back to a watchful waiting approach, keep monitoring PSA levels and symptoms, and if anything was missed, follow up with full surgery. That is, surgery can become the last-ditch approach vs. being the only approach.