On Jun 18, 9:06 pm, Danger Mouse <danger_mo...@att.net> wrote:
> Found this on the DrudgReport just a bit ago:
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...2008/06/18/sci...
>
> Pretty outstanding strategy - cured the guy's skin cancer, but appears to be
> applicable to any cancer.
>
> Hope they get it working that way.
This is great, but I doubt if it will work for all patients or
all cancers.
Fighting cancer makes rocket science look like child's play.
As I understand it, immune systems cells, also called "white
blood cells" or "T-cells", or "leukocytes", kill cells by
injecting them with a signal that causes the cell to kill itself
(a process called "apoptosis".) The technique works well for
attacking cells infected with viruses or bacteria, but cancer
cells are a little different in that the DNA governing the
internal machinery of the cell is mutated. One of the possible
mutations found in many cancers is a mutation that damages or
destroys the response to the kill signal. The immune system can
signal such a cell to kill itself, but the cell can go on merrily
dividing and replicating in spite of the signal. As other tumor
cells die, eventually, these immune system resistant cells come
to dominate the cancer and it starts to grow again - much the way
hormone resistant cells or chemotherapy resistant cell can come
to dominate a patient.
What I think we'll see is something like this:
1. Some patients will effect a complete cure. They have no cells
that are fully capable of resisting the immune system signals.
2. Some patients will effect a remission. They have many cells
that respond to the immune system attack, but some that don't
that eventually grow and become life threatening.
The distinction between 1 and 2 may be hard to tell. A
patient might appear to have all of his cancer cleared out and
then, five years later, it comes back - indicating perhaps
that a few immune system tumor cells hunkered down and
eventually began to grow and metastasize again.
3. Some patients will get very little benefit because their
cancers are already immune system resistant.
However, although I appear to be throwing cold water on this, I'm
not. I'm hoping a fair number of patients fall into category 1.
I'm also hoping that a great number of patients in category 2
will get X years from hormone therapy, Y years from immune
therapy, Z years from chemotherapy, etc., and that X+Y+Z takes
the patient out to a normal long lifespan. Or as the docs put
it, "living with cancer" instead of dying from it.
Alan
Another Treatment Strategy 
Linear Mode
