6 ms·

Previus discussion (from the university press release) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 (498 points

Previus discussion (from the university press release) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46306894 (498 points | 6 months ago | 140 comments) I'll rehash my comment They used mice, because they are good for early tries. The researchers had 9 bacterias and only 1 was successful. Experiments in mice are cheaper and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans. (Hey! They even injected the cancer cells in mice and waited a week until it grow. Nobody will approve something like that in humans.) The title claims that the tumos were eradicated. The title hides that it was a small tumor they injected in the mice and more importantly that it disappeared for two weeks until the experiment ended. It's difficult to guess if it will be useful for humans with bigger tumors because they are harder to detect, and it would work for a interesting enough period like 5 years. There is also and old comment by octaane https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46308732 I'll quote it partially: > Several things trigger my bullshit meter. Quote: >> "This dramatically surpasses the therapeutic efficacy of current standard treatments, including immune checkpoint inhibitors (anti-PD-L1 antibody) and liposomal doxorubicin (chemotherapy agents)" > PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies are only effective against cancers that are PD-L1 positive. [...] Many tumor types are not PD-l1 positive. > Doxy is an ancient SOC chemo. > [...]

bcjdjsndon 4mo ago
> and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans More like, what's a mouse gonna do about it?
- duozerk 4mo ago
  Wait patiently until their planet-sized computer gives them the answer they've been waiting for and then take their revenge
  - sfifs 4mo ago
    HaHa I was thinking just the same :-) For those unfamiliar with the reference, in Hitchikers guide to the galaxy series, Mice are projections of hyper intelligent extra terrestrial beings from a higher dimension who commission the creation of planet earth complete with fossils as a giant organic computer
    - NetOpWibby 4mo ago
      WTF!! I should've kept reading the series as a kid, this would've blown my mind haha!
      - wolfi1 4mo ago
        it's in the first book
        NetOpWibby 4mo ago
        Oh man my memory is shot then
        prewett 4mo ago
        Maybe you just didn't really see it. I've begun to notice that I don't even see certain things that I read, especially if I'm not intellectually prepared to receive them. I vaguely remembered the mice and the earth being a computer (once prompted by the post), but I had no idea about the mice being 3D projections of a multi-dimensional being. I'm pretty sure that idea was either not something I truly comprehended at 20 and/or I thought it was stupid/random (my opinion on the book as a whole), so the thought never even sank in. Other times I just don't see something for other reasons. I read Augustine's Confessions and never saw the famous line "our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee", which is in the THIRD sentence! I'm not sure if the antiquated English [1] threw me off, or what. In fact, I don't remember seeing pretty much every quote people take from Confessions, besides the pear episode. Some of those are theological ideas that are just completely new, some are probably my annoyance at his "confessing" things that aren't really faults [2], and my annoyance at his insistence on quoting the Bible everywhere he could [3]. But I find it strange that I seemed to have simply not seen most of what other people get out of it. [1] Rant: don't bother reading the out of copyright translations of ancient works, because the 1800s and early 1900s seemed to think that because the works are old, it should be translated into old English. This is stupid. Augustine didn't write in 500 year old Latin, so translating it into 500 year old English is mistranslation. [2] I am starting to think that maybe "confess" might have meant something different, and it is not confessing a faults but a statement of beliefs. [3] I suspect that ancient ideas of rhetoric valued quoting trusted sources a lot, kind of how classical Chinese literature quotes older classic literature a lot. Augustine, being a professional rhetorician, would in that case be expected to do that. But it drove me nuts.
1234letshaveatw 4mo ago
I think you overestimate the "interesting enough period". How much would it be worth for some patients to go into remission for a year? or even 6 months? The answer is a lot
- gus_massa 4mo ago
  Every additional day is a blessing, but each treatment has possible nasty side effects, require time for administration [1], time to fill the insurance paperwork and a cost that sometimes must be covered by the family. You don't want to waste a full week locked inside a hospital to get 1 extra day. Anyway, 5 years is a long time, so I agree shorter times are useful and interesting. But, 5 years is used as an arbitrary threshold like in https://www.webmd.com/cancer/remission-what-does-it-mean https://www.webmd.com/cancer/remission-what-does-it-mean so I think it's a good comparison to put "eradicate" in the title.
simonreiff 4mo ago
I disagree that the title "hides" that the title was small and that it disappeared for two weeks. The surviving contingent on the E. americana strain was evaluated for 60 days, and the tumor doesn't look particularly small based on the picture on page 8 of the paper. I think the study size is small (n=5) so we'd like to see more large-scale studies next, but it's already a strong result to show 5/5 (100%) at p < 0.0001 for multiple primary endpoints and the absence of success from comparable bacteria is helpful to frame future research. The absence of long-term side effects and only transient weight-loss followed by 15-day weight gain is also intriguing. I'm not a doctor, oncologist, or cancer researcher, but the methodology looks sound and appropriate to me, as does the title, based on reading the paper.
- gus_massa 4mo ago
  > The surviving contingent on the E. americana strain was evaluated for 60 days The article says > The surviving contingent on the E. americana strain was evaluated for 60 days (Supplementary Figure S5). The supplementary material only shows a reshot with cancer cells at the day 30. All the other parts also days a total of 60 days. At day 0 the cancer cells were injected, approximately at day 10 the bacteria were injected, and approximately at day 20 the cancer disappeared. So correct my initial comment and say that it's 40 days cancer free. When the title says "eradication" most people interpret "forever". That is too optimistic and unrealistic, but a 5 years survival rate is somewhat a standard point. 15 or 40 days is too short to know if there are some hidden metastasis, they need more time to grow and be visible. Also, the initial treatment is only 10 days after the initial shot with cancer cells. IIRC it's an aggressive cancer variant in mice variant that has a crappy inmune system. Gut cancer in humans are detected when they block the guts or bleed or in periodic colonoscopy every few years, so they usually have more than 10 days to develop before detection. Note that this setup in mice is good for initial test and to filter the promising treatments as they did, but it's difficult to extrapolate to long term treatment of humans.
raxxorraxor 4mo ago
Don't know about mice, but rats more or less have a 50% tumor/cancer chance if they really do get to live 1+ years. I think for some lines it goes up to 90%+.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- wincy 4mo ago
  Every rat (4 now) I've owned except one has died of cancer. Or at least, they died with cancer, I'm not a veterinarian. The one that didn't got the flu or something at 6 months and died of some respiratory issue.
  - ofrzeta 4mo ago
    How did you diagnose the cancer?
    - Splinter_enth 4mo ago
      There's nothing subtle about cancer in rats, especially the females. They're terribly prone to breast cancer and female rat has a lot of breasts. You'll see golf ball sized things in no time unless you're willing to pay for removals. Very common and any vet will spot it. When they get a 'lump' it grows real quick. They make lovely, interactive pets, and very intelligent but they will break your heart and die too soon.
  - srean 4mo ago
    Rats have such bad PR. They make fun affectionate pets if you can stomach the idea that they will die on you.
kvgr 4mo ago
Cant it be just some immunity reaction induced by the bacteria what would not translate to humans?
- imzadi 4mo ago
  It is an immunity reaction. The bacteria multiplied in the tumors until they triggered an immunity response, which caused the body to destroy the tumors along with the bacteria. Whether or not it translates to humans remains to be seen.
sheepscreek 4mo ago
Moneyshot: > The three bacterial strains that successfully induced tumor regression (E. americana, C. portucalensis, and E. ludwigii) were all identified as facultative anaerobic bacteria. > This finding is consistent with established principles of bacterial cancer therapy, as anaerobic bacteria possess the unique capability to selectively accumulate and colonize within solid tumors due to the characteristically hypoxic and immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. > This selective tumor colonization likely enabled efficient intratumoral bacterial proliferation and, in conjunction with activated immune cell responses, contributed significantly to the observed tumor regression phenomena. Said in other words, the tumours created the ideal environment for anaerobic bacteria to multiply. Eventually causing a reaction from the body’s own immune response (which ignored the tumour but successfully detected the bacterial growth). So one of the reasons this worked well was that the bacteria acted as a target for the immune cells, and they proliferated inside the tumour thus weakening it.
shostack 4mo ago
The world would be a smarter place if every study and resulting news article were required by law to include something like this at the top.

bcjdjsndon 4mo ago

> and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans More like, what's a mouse gonna do about it?

duozerk 4mo ago
Wait patiently until their planet-sized computer gives them the answer they've been waiting for and then take their revenge
- sfifs 4mo ago
  HaHa I was thinking just the same :-) For those unfamiliar with the reference, in Hitchikers guide to the galaxy series, Mice are projections of hyper intelligent extra terrestrial beings from a higher dimension who commission the creation of planet earth complete with fossils as a giant organic computer
  - NetOpWibby 4mo ago
    WTF!! I should've kept reading the series as a kid, this would've blown my mind haha!
    - wolfi1 4mo ago
      it's in the first book
      - NetOpWibby 4mo ago
        Oh man my memory is shot then
        prewett 4mo ago
        Maybe you just didn't really see it. I've begun to notice that I don't even see certain things that I read, especially if I'm not intellectually prepared to receive them. I vaguely remembered the mice and the earth being a computer (once prompted by the post), but I had no idea about the mice being 3D projections of a multi-dimensional being. I'm pretty sure that idea was either not something I truly comprehended at 20 and/or I thought it was stupid/random (my opinion on the book as a whole), so the thought never even sank in. Other times I just don't see something for other reasons. I read Augustine's Confessions and never saw the famous line "our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee", which is in the THIRD sentence! I'm not sure if the antiquated English [1] threw me off, or what. In fact, I don't remember seeing pretty much every quote people take from Confessions, besides the pear episode. Some of those are theological ideas that are just completely new, some are probably my annoyance at his "confessing" things that aren't really faults [2], and my annoyance at his insistence on quoting the Bible everywhere he could [3]. But I find it strange that I seemed to have simply not seen most of what other people get out of it. [1] Rant: don't bother reading the out of copyright translations of ancient works, because the 1800s and early 1900s seemed to think that because the works are old, it should be translated into old English. This is stupid. Augustine didn't write in 500 year old Latin, so translating it into 500 year old English is mistranslation. [2] I am starting to think that maybe "confess" might have meant something different, and it is not confessing a faults but a statement of beliefs. [3] I suspect that ancient ideas of rhetoric valued quoting trusted sources a lot, kind of how classical Chinese literature quotes older classic literature a lot. Augustine, being a professional rhetorician, would in that case be expected to do that. But it drove me nuts.

1234letshaveatw 4mo ago

I think you overestimate the "interesting enough period". How much would it be worth for some patients to go into remission for a year? or even 6 months? The answer is a lot

gus_massa 4mo ago
Every additional day is a blessing, but each treatment has possible nasty side effects, require time for administration [1], time to fill the insurance paperwork and a cost that sometimes must be covered by the family. You don't want to waste a full week locked inside a hospital to get 1 extra day. Anyway, 5 years is a long time, so I agree shorter times are useful and interesting. But, 5 years is used as an arbitrary threshold like in https://www.webmd.com/cancer/remission-what-does-it-mean https://www.webmd.com/cancer/remission-what-does-it-mean so I think it's a good comparison to put "eradicate" in the title.

simonreiff 4mo ago

I disagree that the title "hides" that the title was small and that it disappeared for two weeks. The surviving contingent on the E. americana strain was evaluated for 60 days, and the tumor doesn't look particularly small based on the picture on page 8 of the paper. I think the study size is small (n=5) so we'd like to see more large-scale studies next, but it's already a strong result to show 5/5 (100%) at p < 0.0001 for multiple primary endpoints and the absence of success from comparable bacteria is helpful to frame future research. The absence of long-term side effects and only transient weight-loss followed by 15-day weight gain is also intriguing. I'm not a doctor, oncologist, or cancer researcher, but the methodology looks sound and appropriate to me, as does the title, based on reading the paper.

gus_massa 4mo ago
> The surviving contingent on the E. americana strain was evaluated for 60 days The article says > The surviving contingent on the E. americana strain was evaluated for 60 days (Supplementary Figure S5). The supplementary material only shows a reshot with cancer cells at the day 30. All the other parts also days a total of 60 days. At day 0 the cancer cells were injected, approximately at day 10 the bacteria were injected, and approximately at day 20 the cancer disappeared. So correct my initial comment and say that it's 40 days cancer free. When the title says "eradication" most people interpret "forever". That is too optimistic and unrealistic, but a 5 years survival rate is somewhat a standard point. 15 or 40 days is too short to know if there are some hidden metastasis, they need more time to grow and be visible. Also, the initial treatment is only 10 days after the initial shot with cancer cells. IIRC it's an aggressive cancer variant in mice variant that has a crappy inmune system. Gut cancer in humans are detected when they block the guts or bleed or in periodic colonoscopy every few years, so they usually have more than 10 days to develop before detection. Note that this setup in mice is good for initial test and to filter the promising treatments as they did, but it's difficult to extrapolate to long term treatment of humans.

raxxorraxor 4mo ago

Don't know about mice, but rats more or less have a 50% tumor/cancer chance if they really do get to live 1+ years. I think for some lines it goes up to 90%+.

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
wincy 4mo ago
Every rat (4 now) I've owned except one has died of cancer. Or at least, they died with cancer, I'm not a veterinarian. The one that didn't got the flu or something at 6 months and died of some respiratory issue.
- ofrzeta 4mo ago
  How did you diagnose the cancer?
  - Splinter_enth 4mo ago
    There's nothing subtle about cancer in rats, especially the females. They're terribly prone to breast cancer and female rat has a lot of breasts. You'll see golf ball sized things in no time unless you're willing to pay for removals. Very common and any vet will spot it. When they get a 'lump' it grows real quick. They make lovely, interactive pets, and very intelligent but they will break your heart and die too soon.
- srean 4mo ago
  Rats have such bad PR. They make fun affectionate pets if you can stomach the idea that they will die on you.

kvgr 4mo ago

Cant it be just some immunity reaction induced by the bacteria what would not translate to humans?

imzadi 4mo ago
It is an immunity reaction. The bacteria multiplied in the tumors until they triggered an immunity response, which caused the body to destroy the tumors along with the bacteria. Whether or not it translates to humans remains to be seen.

sheepscreek 4mo ago

Moneyshot: > The three bacterial strains that successfully induced tumor regression (E. americana, C. portucalensis, and E. ludwigii) were all identified as facultative anaerobic bacteria. > This finding is consistent with established principles of bacterial cancer therapy, as anaerobic bacteria possess the unique capability to selectively accumulate and colonize within solid tumors due to the characteristically hypoxic and immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. > This selective tumor colonization likely enabled efficient intratumoral bacterial proliferation and, in conjunction with activated immune cell responses, contributed significantly to the observed tumor regression phenomena. Said in other words, the tumours created the ideal environment for anaerobic bacteria to multiply. Eventually causing a reaction from the body’s own immune response (which ignored the tumour but successfully detected the bacterial growth). So one of the reasons this worked well was that the bacteria acted as a target for the immune cells, and they proliferated inside the tumour thus weakening it.

shostack 4mo ago

The world would be a smarter place if every study and resulting news article were required by law to include something like this at the top.