4 ms·
a) average age is 77 b) drugs cost a shitload (hundereds of thousands/yr) to extend lifespan by...months c) only for ATTR (not AL) amyloidosis d) the drive t
by dogmatism 1y ago
a) average age is 77
b) drugs cost a shitload (hundereds of thousands/yr) to extend lifespan by...months
c) only for ATTR (not AL) amyloidosis
d) the drive to diagnose and treat only really started after tafamidis (1st drug with any effectiveness) was marketed...hmmm
e) the dude in the article used as an example was probably helped more by treating his afib than by the fancy drugs
for sure there are some genetically transmitted younger patient for whom this is important. But there are a lot of frail older people who are getting diagnosed with wild-type ATTR amyloid for...questionable benefit at massive cost. IMO, the jury is still out
- dnautics 1y agoif you can't afford Tafamidis, you could probably get away with taking - Flufenamic acid - Valtoren (Diclofenac) - Diflunisal off-label. https://www.benthamdirect.com/content/journals/cdtcnsnd/10.2174/156800705774322076 https://www.benthamdirect.com/content/journals/cdtcnsnd/10.2... IANAD but I believe that Valtoren has the least side effects, but in general since they're all NSAIDs they have been tested for long-term analgesic use, so they're relatively safe and quite inexpensive.
- quantumwoke 1y agoWhat's with the kneejerk takedown? a) Yes, it's more common in older people. A lot of old people end up in hospital b) 30% fewer deaths and hospital admissions is a good thing in my book c) The more common form according to my wife
- epcoa 1y ago> The more common form according to my wife Not sure what relevance the source has here, but it’s not correct. Primary (AL) is the most common in the developed world and secondary (AA) elsewhere. There are some foci of ATTR but it is by far not the most common.
- quantumwoke 1y agoI should have mentioned my wife is a physician, apologies. The true prevalence of ATTR is not known since it's only been investigated for recently as described in the article. If you look up recent data you'll see a big difference.
- philwelch 1y ago“Fewer deaths” is a meaningless concept. Every human being inevitably dies. If you prevent someone from dying today, you have only delayed the inevitable. In some cases this is extremely valuable; if you save a newborn baby, that baby could live eighty more years. If you save a 77 year old, they will not live eighty more years. And if you repeatedly save elderly people from natural conditions that could easily kill them, their quality of life gets worse and worse over time as their bodies wear out and decay and the side effects of these interventions build up. Which is why the vast majority of doctors have DNR’s.
- lokrian 1y agoWhile this is logical, the more diseases of old age we cure the longer and better the quality of life the elderly get, and treating amyloidosis is one small step towards that.
- philwelch 1y agoIt depends; for instance there are a lot of cancer treatments that effectively replace a quicker and potentially comfortable death with a prolonged period of suffering. And my argument isn’t that these treatments are universally worthless, but that it’s perfectly fair to observe that their benefits are marginal at best.