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Comment by genman | Hacker News Reader

It is about Osimertinib, sold under the brand name Tagrisso.

It works (in “statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful” manner) against certain types of lung cancer when administered on early stage.

It was provisionally approved after success in phase 1 trial by FDA in 2015 and by EMA in 2016.

Side effects:

Very common (greater than 10% of clinical trial subjects) adverse effects include diarrhea, stomatitis, rashes, dry or itchy skin, infections where finger or toenails abut skin, low platelet counts, low leukocyte counts, and low neutrophil counts.

Common (between 1% and 10% of clinical trial subjects) adverse effects include interstitial lung disease.

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Side effects do not realy sound bad so, as someone who went through a light, comparatively, chemo I saw a lot worse with other patients. Plus, the alternative is lung cancer in late stages. And you sure as hell don't want that!

It is really good to see progress in cancer treatment so!

That doesn't sound too bad if it can cause lung cancer to regress.

The side effect you didn't mention: mouth sores. It's the only one that my wife had (in the first month). So far, no other problems, though the chemo started last week (see my comment about it, if curious).

That would probably be from the chemo your wife is on rather than the osimertinib. Chemo tends to cause mouth ulcers along with hair loss etc.

No, the chemo started a month after the osimertinib and the sores appeared in that first month. The oncologist confirmed it was a side effect of it.

> It works (in “statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful” manner) against certain types of lung cancer when administered on early stage.

What is considered early stage? Pre symptoms?

And what type of success rate are we talking here?

Cancer staging is complex, as one would expect for a wide-ranging category of diseases that follow different courses and cause harm different ways. Stage depends on tumor size, distance of spread, what organs it spread to (lymph nodes are especially worrisome), and how much the tumor cells differ from normal tissue. There is a large manual used by oncologists to record this information, and another large manual for cancer registrars to summarize it.

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/staging.html

There are simplified categories of early/late stages, usually used in public health statistics. "Early stage" here is in situ (hasn't broken out of the tissue where it first appeared) or localized (hasn't left the primary site/organ). "Late stage" is regional (metastasized to adjacent organs) or distant (metastasized to non-adjacent organs, usually through the bloodstream or lymphatic system).

>What is considered early stage? Pre symptoms?

Not necessarily. This is generally true for things like kidney cancer, which is really deadly. People don't usually get checked until they have symptoms, which is usually after it's metastasized. But benign tumors can cause symptoms by physically pressing on organs. Benign brain tumors, which can kill, are an extreme example of this.

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