Comment by sourcinnamon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sourcinnamon | Hacker News Reader

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In addition to the other comment mentioning CAR-T therapies, we also have therapies based on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2024...

https://jitc.bmj.com/content/8/2/e000848 (careful: Figure 1 can be very graphical, but it shows the huge positive impact of this therapy)

We also have therapies based on monoclonal recombinant antibodies conjugated with chemotherapeutics. Simply put, we can produce antibodies that are specific for markers present in the surface of cancer cells, and we can attach drugs that can kill those cells. The antibody part is what makes this type of therapy very effective (you target only cancer cells, and not healthy cells) and also very expensive.

There is no world in which CAR-T is a "cure", especially since this isn't even a scientific term in oncology. We generally say if there is no relapse after 5 years post-treatment, then any cancer is a "new" cancer, so 5 years of remission is the closest thing to a "cure", but this isn't a scientific term.

Also, we barely have more than 3 years data for CAR-T for most cancers. And even still, the survival rates aren't great, in many cases 50% compared to e.g. ~20% for previous chemo-immunotherapies plus marrow transplants. And this ignores how massively immunocompromised (or so permanently brain-damaged you are effectively senile) CAR-T can leave you. You can be severely immunocompromised (literally identical to or worse than AIDS / late-stage HIV) for at least a year in close to half of cases, but maybe even permanently, in perhaps as high as 10% of cases (at least for lymphomas).

I say this as a person that is only alive because of CAR-T treatment 1.5 years ago. CAR-T is amazing, and a far better treatment than previous treatments, but calling it a "cure" is deeply misleading and mostly clueless. Currently, it is simply a much better last-ditch effort than the previous ones.

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