Frustration

In the world of continual medical research and advancements - that every day allow us to get improved treatments for ailments - I feel very frustrated. No I am not on top of all research that is going on so I am sure there is a lot that I am not aware of. But from a patient's point of view it can get very frustrating.

For example, yesterday I read something about how a century old vaccine for something else is being tested to see if it would work as a vaccine for fibromyalgia. That sounds  great. A way to prevent others from getting fibro - which is no fun.

Ahem, but where is the cure? Just because they can prevent someone from getting something they still need a cure. A vaccine only reduces one's risk of getting the ailment and not preventing it 100%. Look at how well the Shingles vaccine works? How many people get the vaccine but still get shingles? I don't know the number but I know it exists - like the flu vaccine.

So where does this leave us patients with ailments? Frustrated. How long are we supposed to wait for the cure? We have the 40+ year 'War on Cancer' and the Cancer Moonshot. And we are still waiting.

The elusive breast cancer vaccine

A few years back I blogged about curing mice in pursuit of a breast cancer vaccine. Then three years ago, I blogged about progress in this vaccine plan. More than four years from my first post, here I can post about the first clinical trials on a breast cancer vaccine.

But before the celebratory parade starts, a few notes of caution. This vaccine will not work on all patients. It will only be effective on patients who's tumor produces mammaglobin-A.

And while progress has been made since the first mice curing trials, this trial was a small phase 1 clinical trial involving 14 metastatic women. These women did experience some benefit from it and the hope is that healthier women who's immune system is not as compromised after years of chemotherapy and hormonal treatment will show more benefit.

So we can call this progress but after waiting since June of 2010, we still need more research and more waiting.