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At 82 years old, with an aggressive form of blood cancer that six courses of chemotherapy had failed to eliminate, "Paul" appeared to be out of options. With each long and unpleasant round of treatment, his doctors had been working their way down a list of common cancer drugs, hoping to hit on something that would prove effective—and crossing them off one by one. The usual cancer killers were not doing their job.
With nothing to lose, Paul's doctors enrolled him in a trial set up by the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, where he lives. The university was testing a new matchmaking technology developed by a UK-based company called Exscientia that pairs individual patients with the precise drugs they need, taking into account the subtle biological differences between people.
[...] In effect, the researchers were doing what the doctors had done: trying different drugs to see what worked. But instead of putting a patient through multiple months-long courses of chemotherapy, they were testing dozens of treatments all at the same time.
The approach allowed the team to carry out an exhaustive search for the right drug. Some of the medicines didn't kill Paul's cancer cells. Others harmed his healthy cells. Paul was too frail to take the drug that came out on top. So he was given the runner-up in the matchmaking process: a cancer drug marketed by the pharma giant Johnson & Johnson that Paul's doctors had not tried because previous trials had suggested it was not effective at treating his type of cancer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Sunday February 19, @07:51PM
Thank you so much for your kind words. I meant to add a big disclaimer that, among many things, I'm not a Dr. (but wish I had pursued that field) and this is not medical advice, just my thoughts, experiences, and possibly opinions.
I see too many posts where someone rails against "getting medical advice from some website post". As I've posted before, I'm the eternal skeptic. Anything I read or hear is going to get dissected, researched, alternate opinions sought, etc., including directly from a Dr. To me, more information is better. I really hate to post this, but I've seen people pass away due to not getting the best possible medical treatment. I could write volumes about that, but it's so depressing I don't have the energy to write or even think about it right now.
I'll say this: a few years ago I stumbled onto a small company whose business is to know, in great depth, what cancer treatments are where. Rather than a person wasting away as time marches and the cancer grows and spreads, even as the person is getting some kind of treatment, this company does all of the DNA and type-matching of your disease and tells you where the best knowledge and treatments are (and temporary housing if needed). Some doctors and medical networks will advise you to go to another for a treatment the original one doesn't have, but many won't tell you even if they know. Pride and ego, coupled with profit, are most likely motives.