Also, I would bet my last dollar the cancer will eventually find a way around it since cancer cells mutate like crazy. So it's probably a question of adding some time to the patient's life instead of curing or even controlling the disease. And there are side effects.
Don't get me wrong - if I have terminal prostate cancer I'm gonna pop these pills like candy. But it's only going to help men with aggressive prostate cancer that can't be cured with surgery because it's already metastasized.
P.S. I'm not going overboard, cancer has done a damned good job of rampaging through my family, so I think I'm excused a little drama ;)
Eh? I guess "never" is a very long time. Prostate cancer isn't communicable, and while you may pass a propensity to get cancer to your offspring that's irrelevant to the treatment.
But since my Dad died of exactly that seven years ago, and there seems to be at least some genetic component to folk who get aggressive prostrate cancer, it's cheered me up quite a bit.
Even if you have an accurate diagnosis you're more than likely to die of something else since it's mostly very slow to grow and metastasise - and the risk of having it cut out quality-of-life wise are non-trivial.
I'm in my forties. The chances that I already have prostrate cancer are about 1/3. The chances that it'll kill me are only about 3/100. The odds that a PSA test will help me figure out the difference are in coin-toss territory. The vast majority of men with prostrate cancer will die of something else (with my weight there are a lot more likely options ;-)
What I'd really love is for researchers to figure out the genetic/environmental factors that make some prostrate cancers become extremely aggressive, metastasise and kill people in months. That would be trez useful. In the mean time having a much more effective treatment for that instance is just about the second best news I can think of.
My Mom was nearly diagnosed with lung cancer but it turned out to be scarring from pneumonia. My Dad may have lung cancer and does have IPF either of which will kill him in six month to a few years.
I don't think people realize that people who are critically ill don't care if it's "Big Pharma" or some weed from China, if it works they'll try it and hope it helps even to live a few more months.
That's one of the reasons something like this is important, it's a life extending drug that's from legitimate sources, which means it's thoroughly tested and isn't some weed from China. The extra time this will give to a lot of people shouldn't be overlooked.