Comment by TaupeRanger
2 days ago
We simply won’t know until they do the inevitable phase2/3 RCTs. They will need to show that this method helps people survive longer or with better quality of life than the current standard of care.
2 days ago
We simply won’t know until they do the inevitable phase2/3 RCTs. They will need to show that this method helps people survive longer or with better quality of life than the current standard of care.
HistoSonics has studies published with 50 patients. Their upcoming study with 5000 liver patients obviously will give more information, but we already have some.
And with that said, these studies are more relevant than the top of thread linking to a review from 2011 looking at papers from 2005-2006 for ultrasound cavitation causing metastases.
...they also appear to have been acquired by an investment group this past year:
https://www.fusfoundation.org/posts/transformational-milesto...
Bezos among them:
https://www.mddionline.com/business/jeff-bezos-others-comple...
>>> ... the study found that removing the parachute prior to jumping led to a shocking increase in mortality among skydivers.
When there's a clear causal mechanism, additional research that doesn't propose a clear resolution to the underlying problem doesn't negate the clear causal mechanism. Releasing a bunch of loose cancer into the body is a clear causal mechanism, so unless you're filtering it or killing the loose cancer somehow, I'm not sure what those studies could tell you that overcomes the underlying problem. And until they address that problem, it's going to be limited to a quality of life type application - stopping the tumor from killing you now with the certainty of metastasis killing you later.
The thing about this kind of 'just so' story causal mechanism is that we still have to actually do the science to find out. Your body does filter and kill potentially cancerous cells all the time already. And cancer cells aren't like, some super thing that evolved to kill you specifically. My just-so story goes like this: 'the cancer cells die because they're suddenly outside of the specific bodypart that they were exploiting'. And we're probably both right, depending on the location of the cancer, the type of cancer, etc.
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So what's the problem? The vast majority of cancer treatments seek only to put the condition into remission for a while. Realistically that's often all that can be done.
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The evidence seems to be that the cells are destroyed, not just split up: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9404673/
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Some tumor types metastasize well, others not so much. But the article doesn't say anything about metastasis, or leaving any cells behind from the target. Rather, it talks about destroying the targeted cells entirely, leaving behind only proteins.
> Releasing a bunch of loose cancer into the body is a clear causal mechanism
I'm not in cancer field, but I'm not sure it is. AFAIK the cells that metastasize need to undergo EMT. Simply releasing them from the tumor doesn't mean the cells can attach and survive in the distal site.
The surface of cancer that protects it from the bodies defenses breaking up + parallel chemo or clonal antibody treatments should take care of that. But the principle critical view is correct.