Discussion for article #223382
58 months instead of 44 months may seem like a trivial gain, but every day counts to the patient and the patient’s family. This is promising news.
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As someone who has dealt with cancer myself (not prostate…well not yet anyway) 14 months that wouldn’t have been there otherwise is good news. But the back side of this question …what quality of life did these guys with advanced cancer have? That’s something I think about often. Hearing your doctor utter the words “you have cancer” are not the easiest words to hear.
Good news, but at $1500/dose “cheap” is an adjective in need of another adjective, like, “relatively”.
As to quality of life, that is a critical question whose answer almost certainly varies from patient to patient.
Quality of life doesn’t get enough respect. My dad got excellent medical care and probably live 6 years longer because of it. But that last year was so bad he really, really wanted to die.
The article says 6 infusions of the drug at 3 week intervals, but cursory mention of the side effects. Even if the infusions made you sick as a dog, that’s sick for 4.5 months to gain 14. Sounds like a good bet to me.
The article makes a point about government funding for studies like this where industry sees no profit.
This reminds me of some odd things that happened to some generic drugs during the Bush administration. 1) Quinine tablets were removed from the market because there was something newer, supposedly better, and definitely expensive. 2) Guaifenesen, a very old, cheap generic drug became an expensive, monopoly-controlled non-prescription drug when the NIH apparently made a deal with a drug company to test it, and then own it. 3) The standard Albuterol rescue inhaler for asthma was reformulated with a different more Eco-friendly propellant; and also became a much more expensive drug controlled by a monopoly. These are just the cases I heard about or experienced myself. I wonder how many generics actually disappeared or were returned to designer status. I also wonder what the fate of that “cheap” Docetaxel will be as soon as some drug company has an expensive product with the same uses, and a friend in an administration.