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This article is inspiring but it fails to mention that no studies have shown that the device actually works. The FDA approval process for medical devices is ve

This article is inspiring but it fails to mention that no studies have shown that the device actually works. The FDA approval process for medical devices is very different then from pharmaceuticals; to oversimplify, efficacy does not need to be demonstrated, only safety (i.e. the device is not toxic). Thus the fact that the device is FDA approved doesn't really mean much (although it sounds great). As with renewable energy, cancer treatment draws massive attention because it is such a big problem, and potential miracle solutions constantly make headlines. However, the general audience does not have the background to place these announcements in context, and neither does the typical journalist. It is actually rather easy to come up with an entirely new approach that seems to work under certain conditions (algae make biofuels! solar panels in space! mice cancer cured!) but has no practical value. Having said that, good luck to this guy and I hope the device works well. (I work in medical devices for cancer diagnosis)

BigZaphod 17y ago
From the article: "I found a 1987 Italian funded set of clinical studies that showed successful treatment of tumors by the application of chemotherapy directly into the tumors." It stands to reason that if it is true that directly treating the tumors themselves is effective, then this device will be effective since all it is is a delivery mechanism for the pre-existing drugs. While I guess it's possible that somehow the design of the device itself is defective, it does seem rather unlikely that they'd have come this far without at least testing the mechanics of the process on a pig or cadaver or something.
- brfox 17y ago
  Tumors that you can find don't kill people with cancer, its the millions of metastases all over the body (or a specific organ) which actually cause cancer to be deadly. There are a fair number of drugs which "treat tumors" (i.e. shrink tumors or stop their growth), but very few drugs actually extend the life of a cancer patient due to the metastatic issue mentioned above.
Novash 17y ago
You sound like the doctors on the article that says that "it wouldn't work anyway". I understand that you have a far greater background than I have and I respect that, but you must keep your mind open. Most of the great anchievements of mankind 'wouldn't work anyway' in the minds of the specialists of the age. And they were wrong. With all due respect, you, giving you background on the matter, can find any technical reason why it wouldn't work? Can any of your colleagues? I am not asking about a real test, just a theorical reason based on everything you know about the field.
- marciovm123 17y ago
  Very valid points. I'm not saying this kind of work shouldn't be pursued, I just wanted to point out that it is premature to think of this device as a "breakthrough". As I said before, I hope it works, and new approaches are in general a good thing. I just think the way they are reported is more for entertainment purposes then spreading true knowledge. Technically, the idea of killing a tumor w/ a localized toxin is in fact already widely used, not mechanically with tubes but with things like focused X-rays or molecular targeting (drugs that preferentially bind to cancer cells). While this helps, it rarely cures cancer because 1) by the time it is applied cancer cells have circulated throughout the body and seeded new tumors and 2) it's very difficult to kill 100% of cancer cells, and what winds up happening is you kill 99% of them that are most susceptible to being killed by chemo giving the 1% that is most resistant more room to grow. Hence the recurrence is much more difficult to treat.
  - berntb 17y ago
    >>it's very difficult to kill 100% of cancer cells, and what winds up happening is you kill 99% of them that are most susceptible to being killed by chemo giving the 1% that is most resistant more room to grow. Hence the recurrence is much more difficult to treat. Isn't the point of a device like this that it can increase the concentration of chemo in tumors while keeping the concentration as low as possible in non-cancerous tissue? Which should help that point (that is, manage to kill off enough cancer cells that the immune system or some other treatment can wipe out any surviving). (As someone else noted, the article referenced some paper supporting doing this method.) Let us all hope this works really well.
by 17y ago
I have long felt that there is a massive and well funded lobby for curing things, but an impoverished prevention programme. There is no real financial incentive to prevent cancer etc, but lots of money and glory for curing people who have got cancer. This applies right across medicine. Similarly there is a massive and well funded lobby for power production and very little for power efficiency, which effectively achieves the same result. Instead of spending the money on solar panels in space what about energy efficient fridges? And no, this doesn't shrink the 'economy' it allows us to achieve the same level of wealth with less resource consumption.
- anamax 17y ago
  > I have long felt that there is a massive and well funded lobby for curing things, but an impoverished prevention programme. There is no real financial incentive to prevent cancer etc, but lots of money and glory for curing people who have got cancer. I see lots of people spending money on things that they're told will protect them from cancer, so there's clearly a huge financial incentive. > Similarly there is a massive and well funded lobby for power production and very little for power efficiency, which effectively achieves the same result. Likewise. And, I see people buying things to get them better mileage too. In fact, it's hard to avoid seeing this stuff, at least in mainstream US. In short, I'm pretty sure that the "there's no real financial incentive" stuff is "why don't the proles see what's obvious to people like me". The only question is whether it comes from cocooning or just not paying attention.
- Novash 17y ago
  I believe that there is a serious incentive on prevention and efficiency. However, there is a much louder voice for curing and expansion. I can offer you two reasons why. 1) Lack of better knowledge in the past: For a long time people thought smoking was fashionable. Today we know it causes lung cancer, but it is now too late to tell all those people that have been smoking their entire life. This can be said about nearly everything in every other field. I would not say that we have better knowledge about many things now. Science is still not sure if eggs are good or bad for you, neither why many people develop lactose intollerance after their childhood. Because of that, prevention is pretty much a luck guess by now. We look at those who have survived and try to figure out why. Then we tell people to do that and see if it works, but there are so many factors that 'I' feel that prevention is in many cases just a gambling game. 2) Lack of knowledge of economy of scale. When the industrial revolution started, steam was on its heydays, and all that, the idea of recycling and efficiency didn't exist AT ALL. People really thought that Earth could take everything that was thrown at it and its resources would last forever. Only now, with a population of many billions that we are seeing that Earth is panting, trying to catch up with our wasteful ways. The idea of 'reduce, reuse, recycle' to save resources is very new and there is a lot of social and economical mommentum it needs to overcome before it becomes mainstream.
spoonyg 17y ago
Not exactly correct. For an FDA market approval a medical device must be proven to be safe AND effective. This can be proven in several ways: through a trial or as I believe in this case, through similarity to another proven device. And this is not the only bar. If you have a new device you also have to get reimbursement from health insurance. This is not guaranteed just because you have FDA approval.
ynniv 17y ago
Mechanically, or clinically? It seems likely that this will work mechanically. I don't think that he is claiming to have cured cancer, just improved the technique for delivering chemotherapy drugs to a certain kind of tumors.
pageman 17y ago
the literature review is here: http://www.vasculardesigns.com/V2/litreview.html http://www.vasculardesigns.com/V2/litreview.html

BigZaphod 17y ago

From the article: "I found a 1987 Italian funded set of clinical studies that showed successful treatment of tumors by the application of chemotherapy directly into the tumors." It stands to reason that if it is true that directly treating the tumors themselves is effective, then this device will be effective since all it is is a delivery mechanism for the pre-existing drugs. While I guess it's possible that somehow the design of the device itself is defective, it does seem rather unlikely that they'd have come this far without at least testing the mechanics of the process on a pig or cadaver or something.

brfox 17y ago
Tumors that you can find don't kill people with cancer, its the millions of metastases all over the body (or a specific organ) which actually cause cancer to be deadly. There are a fair number of drugs which "treat tumors" (i.e. shrink tumors or stop their growth), but very few drugs actually extend the life of a cancer patient due to the metastatic issue mentioned above.

Novash 17y ago

You sound like the doctors on the article that says that "it wouldn't work anyway". I understand that you have a far greater background than I have and I respect that, but you must keep your mind open. Most of the great anchievements of mankind 'wouldn't work anyway' in the minds of the specialists of the age. And they were wrong. With all due respect, you, giving you background on the matter, can find any technical reason why it wouldn't work? Can any of your colleagues? I am not asking about a real test, just a theorical reason based on everything you know about the field.

marciovm123 17y ago
Very valid points. I'm not saying this kind of work shouldn't be pursued, I just wanted to point out that it is premature to think of this device as a "breakthrough". As I said before, I hope it works, and new approaches are in general a good thing. I just think the way they are reported is more for entertainment purposes then spreading true knowledge. Technically, the idea of killing a tumor w/ a localized toxin is in fact already widely used, not mechanically with tubes but with things like focused X-rays or molecular targeting (drugs that preferentially bind to cancer cells). While this helps, it rarely cures cancer because 1) by the time it is applied cancer cells have circulated throughout the body and seeded new tumors and 2) it's very difficult to kill 100% of cancer cells, and what winds up happening is you kill 99% of them that are most susceptible to being killed by chemo giving the 1% that is most resistant more room to grow. Hence the recurrence is much more difficult to treat.
- berntb 17y ago
  >>it's very difficult to kill 100% of cancer cells, and what winds up happening is you kill 99% of them that are most susceptible to being killed by chemo giving the 1% that is most resistant more room to grow. Hence the recurrence is much more difficult to treat. Isn't the point of a device like this that it can increase the concentration of chemo in tumors while keeping the concentration as low as possible in non-cancerous tissue? Which should help that point (that is, manage to kill off enough cancer cells that the immune system or some other treatment can wipe out any surviving). (As someone else noted, the article referenced some paper supporting doing this method.) Let us all hope this works really well.

by 17y ago

I have long felt that there is a massive and well funded lobby for curing things, but an impoverished prevention programme. There is no real financial incentive to prevent cancer etc, but lots of money and glory for curing people who have got cancer. This applies right across medicine. Similarly there is a massive and well funded lobby for power production and very little for power efficiency, which effectively achieves the same result. Instead of spending the money on solar panels in space what about energy efficient fridges? And no, this doesn't shrink the 'economy' it allows us to achieve the same level of wealth with less resource consumption.

anamax 17y ago
> I have long felt that there is a massive and well funded lobby for curing things, but an impoverished prevention programme. There is no real financial incentive to prevent cancer etc, but lots of money and glory for curing people who have got cancer. I see lots of people spending money on things that they're told will protect them from cancer, so there's clearly a huge financial incentive. > Similarly there is a massive and well funded lobby for power production and very little for power efficiency, which effectively achieves the same result. Likewise. And, I see people buying things to get them better mileage too. In fact, it's hard to avoid seeing this stuff, at least in mainstream US. In short, I'm pretty sure that the "there's no real financial incentive" stuff is "why don't the proles see what's obvious to people like me". The only question is whether it comes from cocooning or just not paying attention.
Novash 17y ago
I believe that there is a serious incentive on prevention and efficiency. However, there is a much louder voice for curing and expansion. I can offer you two reasons why. 1) Lack of better knowledge in the past: For a long time people thought smoking was fashionable. Today we know it causes lung cancer, but it is now too late to tell all those people that have been smoking their entire life. This can be said about nearly everything in every other field. I would not say that we have better knowledge about many things now. Science is still not sure if eggs are good or bad for you, neither why many people develop lactose intollerance after their childhood. Because of that, prevention is pretty much a luck guess by now. We look at those who have survived and try to figure out why. Then we tell people to do that and see if it works, but there are so many factors that 'I' feel that prevention is in many cases just a gambling game. 2) Lack of knowledge of economy of scale. When the industrial revolution started, steam was on its heydays, and all that, the idea of recycling and efficiency didn't exist AT ALL. People really thought that Earth could take everything that was thrown at it and its resources would last forever. Only now, with a population of many billions that we are seeing that Earth is panting, trying to catch up with our wasteful ways. The idea of 'reduce, reuse, recycle' to save resources is very new and there is a lot of social and economical mommentum it needs to overcome before it becomes mainstream.

spoonyg 17y ago

Not exactly correct. For an FDA market approval a medical device must be proven to be safe AND effective. This can be proven in several ways: through a trial or as I believe in this case, through similarity to another proven device. And this is not the only bar. If you have a new device you also have to get reimbursement from health insurance. This is not guaranteed just because you have FDA approval.

ynniv 17y ago

Mechanically, or clinically? It seems likely that this will work mechanically. I don't think that he is claiming to have cured cancer, just improved the technique for delivering chemotherapy drugs to a certain kind of tumors.

pageman 17y ago

the literature review is here: http://www.vasculardesigns.com/V2/litreview.html http://www.vasculardesigns.com/V2/litreview.html