They were among the other four.
I've monitored progress on medical knowledge and treatment of the condition over the ensuing decades. What I've learned is that:
- It's now possible to directly detect the genetic marker of the condition. We have improved detection and precision of Dx.
- The actual therapy ... is effectively unchanged. The chemo and radiation therapies they'd received were essentially unchanged over the preceding two decades, and were based on chemicals and mechanisms already in use in the 1950s (though dosing, quality, and side-effects mitigation are somewhat improved).
- The compounds themselves date to World War One, poison gas, and human experiments now considered crimes against humanity. History is interesting....
- These treatments remain largely unchanged in the decades since my friend's death. And five-year mortality for the condition remains about 80%.
That's the science: fifty to seventy years of effectively no progress. Not for want of trying.
From a point of view of assuaging Past Me that we'd pursued and received not only the best of all possible treatment, but hadn't missed out on any late-breaking developments, this information is comforting. Operating in the ultimate domain of uncertainty, of what the future might bring, we'd made the best decisions.
And yet at the time, in an era pre-dating the Web (though I did at the time have access to the pre-Web Internet), "helpful" people offerred various "nontraditional" therapies, the most frequent revolving around "laetrile" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalin#Laetrile), acyanide-based compound repeatedly demonstrated to have no therapeutic effectiveness, and multiple risks, since the 1960s. Despite this, treatment "clinics" had sprung up, notably in the Caribbean and in Mexico, offering the "treatment", at a steep fee. (Actor Steve McQueen is among those who'd fallen prey to the scam.)
I ran interference for those closer to my friend by intercepting, assessing, and discarding any such literature. In the heat of fear, uncertainty, confusion, doubt, and guilt that are the hallmarks of dealing with grave illness, adding more useless malicious and fraudulent bullshit to the informational mix would have been actively harmful, both medically for the patient and psychologically for them and all caregivers.
And I remain glad I did.