There was a small (and I mean really small - three person) study on a gene therapy which uses the patient's own blood to cure their leukemia. It was aptly written about by a reporter with the last name Nano...
Okay, its progress. It sounds very promising. I think it could be a sign of the future - taking your own blood and turning it into T cells and then it gets beyond me. But please, its only on THREE people and they still don't have any long term results. As the article states, they need to look at the condition of the patients in one or two years.
This is not a cure, it is another in a long series of potential breakthroughs. The problem is all these breakthroughs is that we hear about them now but we have to wait for years to find out if they will work for the general population with the ailment - like all of us with a lovely cancer diagnosis in our background. While the doctors cited in this article are 'could hardly contain his enthusiasm' and found the study 'pretty remarkable' but its only THREE. And they want to test this in leukemia related cancers as well as ovarian, pancreatic, brain, and prostate cancers. That still leaves a lot of other cancers with out a solution.
Maybe I am a tad cynical but that is allowed. So I'll just sit here as the impatient patient and see if this one leads to any more results - in another five to ten years.
2 comments:
I am doing a simlar trial/study at Johns Hopkins with Leisha Emens MD. You should call her and ask her about the her BC vaccine. I am number 20 in my group. Still I think no one is more than a couple of years out on this.
This story is all over the news. I had no idea it was only with three people! That's irresponsible to make it such huge news when it's that small a sampling, wow.
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