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Comment by chillax | Hacker News Reader

Seems so?

"Within the next several years, it is likely the technique will become a standardized treatment for cancers such as myeloma or pancreatic cancer, Tanios Bekaii-Saab, a researcher at James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Ohio, told the Star Tribune. Still, the study must be confirmed in large randomized clinical trials. “Unless we get to the third stage of development, we are cautiously optimistic,” he said."

Source of source: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/pb/assets/raw/Health%20...

More on reddit/science: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/25j3je/mayo_clinic_...

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Cautiously optimistic is the right wording. Seems like the patient has a severe reaction to the injection - if they get patients with even worse reaction or even dying from it, it could kill the therapy for good in Phase I.

Even if they get to Ph3, cancer trials usually take several years to enroll and to reach results, and it wouldn't be a therapy before 6-7 years down the road at the earliest, since you'd want to demonstrate PFS and OS improvement and that takes time in certain forms of Cancer.

EDIT: Patients experiencing complete remission is not completely exceptional in Phase Is. it happens, but it's usually very rare that it occurs in MANY patients. So, effectively speaking, this is n=1 datapoint at this stage, unless demonstrated otherwise.

>if they get patients with even worse reaction or even dying from it, it could kill the therapy for good in Phase I.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It depends. If it shows to be safer than a bone marrow transplant (insanely dangerous) its got potential.

It's all a benefits/risk analysis.

You are thinking of allogeneic bone marrow transplants (bone marrow is transplanted from a donor) where there is a 20% chance of death. Typically, myeloma patients get autologous transplants (the patient self donates bone marrow stem cells) which are much less dangerous (less than 5% death rate). I know someone who has had five ASCTs (autologous stem cell transplants) and he is still kicking. It's not a cake walk but at least you don't die.

If they get to phase 3, that means the stuff probably works, and it means people really sick can probably get it via compassionate use. So that'd be good news.

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