Be wary of science by press releases.
In a mid‑stage study of high‑risk melanoma patients who had undergone surgery, the vaccine combined with Merck’s Keytruda reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% after five years, consistent with the three-year follow-up data in 2023.
So, they had surgery, plus Ketruda.
@$200,000, few will be able to afford this and insurance will not cover it.
Generally, surgery for melanoma is not very hardcore. Since we’re talking about the skin, they just cut out the area. It’s not a complicated procedure and is the standard treatment for melanoma.
Cancer treatments often gave multiple components to them. Ex: someone gets chemo and then surgery as part of a standard for certain types of cancers at certain stages.
It wouldn’t make any sense for someone to get this vaccine and for them to leave the cancer on the patient.
This is huge news, contrary to what you say. Melanoma has a crazy mortality rate. Cutting it in half is a huge success.
Is it affordable yet? Clearly not. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t get there eventually.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought carcinoma was the skin cancer easily cut out. Melanoma is inherently predispositioned to being metastatic, hence why it accounts for 75%of all skin cancer related deaths
They cut all skin cancers out from your skin (well… barring some exceptions for very unusual types of cases). It’s just that melanoma often spread to other parts of your body quickly, which is why it is so deadly. But it still is standard practice to excise the portion that is visible on the skin surface.
One thing to note is that even the report you get after surgery says that all of the tumor was excised properly, it does NOT mean all of the cancer is necessarily gone, just that the one tumor was removed from that one area of your skin. You can have suspected or unsuspected spread elsewhere.
Idk if that makes any sense. I get these cases as part of my job which is both interesting and also terrifying at how readily they spread. But idk that I can explain well.
Fair. I’m reading a lot of papers for uni rn, guess I need to be a bit more thorough lol
Again, press releases are not the place to get science.
The point of press releases is to boost stock prices, and that didn’t happen, which says analysts looking deeper into the data are not convinced.
There is a deep trench of bullshit hype to swim through with pharma data, and the FDA is not the agency to trust any more.
I will give you that. I definitely am on board with that. People love to link pop sci articles with dramatic headlines, but the reality often isn’t as dramatic. Pop sci articles definitely are one of my pet peeves. People will be like “cure for cancer found!” when in reality it’s just some sort of in vitro testing that destroyed cells. Cancer cells are also killed by bleach and fire, but those aren’t helpful for its treatment in humans lol.
So I get it lol. I guess I was just playing devil’s advocate for a moment.
Only phase 2 trial, but still hopeful.
49% reduction, customized to patient’s cancer, and $200k.
Cancer treatment can cost a lot more, so here’s hoping.
This really puts a hole in “they aren’t curing cancer because it’s not profitable” argument. Insurance companies love cures because it’s a lot cheaper for them to pay once than for ongoing treatment, when the only thing you’re paying is the premium (and copay or whatever).
Assuming they actually pay for treatment, which they will often try to avoid in as many ways as possible. Even delaying treatment is successful for insurance companies, as by the time all the paperwork is sorted and an insurance company finally agrees to pay for treatment, it can be too late.
What insurance companies love is not paying out money - for treatment or a cure.
no one said cure.
Cure is the most abused term in medicine.
