Page 1 of Incurable Cancer cleared in young girl

Amazing and exciting story about base editing very well explained by the BBC, great chance to target many diseases :)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63859184

Man given a year to live now cancer-free after experimental drug trial

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-64119316
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Writer`s Release

Great stories these - although by definition, others taking part in the trial won't get the same results as they'll have been on placebos instead.  I don't believe when you take part you actually know if you're getting the real thing or not until a while later.  It's the way treatments and drugs need to be tested and validated.

Ste

I've heard of drug trials where the treatment proved so effective that they halted the trial and put all of them on the real thing. Obviously though this isn't true in most cases and double blind testing is the best way to test efficacy.

Quote:
sj says...
"others taking part in the trial won't get the same results as they'll have been on placebos instead"
I haven't seen the way the trial was set up, but not all trials use a placebo. Often these sorts of trials have their success measured against people not on the trial.

What there is here, is the natural assumption that everyone receiving this treatment will have the same outcome. So confirmation bias is likely to be a factor.


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Not sure how we can find out but I've not heard of a similar thing where everyone gets it - the power of placebo needs to be ruled out.  I know a few people who were asked if they wanted to take part in a trial - but they were told they would not actually know at the outset if they were getting the drug they were hoping for.
To be clear, I'm not talking about getting no treatment at all (a 'total' placebo) - I'm referring to cases where it's in addition to standard treatment - especially for treating the bastard big C.
And yes, definitely, it shouldn't be assumed all benefited to the same extent as this guy either.

Ste

Quote:
sj says...
"I'm referring to cases where it's in addition to standard treatment"
That's people not on the trial vs people on the trial. We have good data for people who have been diagnosed and tracked without experimental treatments.


Quote:
sj says...
"the power of placebo needs to be ruled out"
Cancer generally doesn't respond well to placebos, it's also easy to measure the effectiveness of a trial because you can measure the size of the growth.

There are instances where people's cancer does just go away on it's own, it's actually hard to even know how often this happens because unless they showed symptoms and got a diagnosis there is an unknown percentage of the population that this happens to.

This is part of the reason we need to be careful with these trials early findings, his cancer may have gone away completely on it's own.

Anyway, none of us know the trial as you say, it could have used a placebo after all if there was no conventional treatment. Although I believe if people do get a placebo they may also get the experimental drug later on, it's all very complicated.

I'll get excited when we actually have a proven drug that works really well.


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