breakthrough? new find by doctors

[scottg]

Why isnt anyone talking about the new discovery by university of texas where they have found a real possible find that completely stops colon cancer growth.I am a stage 4 patient and do tons of research and have personaly spoke to the doctor-scientist who truly believes that it will work in human trials which he hopes to start soon. Look on the net under
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 092606.php
or (search aldose reductase colon cancer) .please tell me what you think
Scott

[Magnolia]

This sounds very exciting, but it's probably years away from market. It has to be tested for safety in humans. Some people with advanced cancers may be able to participate in the Phase I trials, when it's used in humans for the first time. Contact your nearest cancer research center to find out if a clinical trial in humans is likely to happen soon. They probably have to do a few more animal trials first.

[guest]

I realize that from mice to men is a long way, but do you know when this might be ready to progress to some human trials?

My husband Stage IIIC doesn't seem to be having much luck in stopping the beast. We are very afraid we are facing a 3rd round (rising CEA again) since this began in Oct. 2004.

What struck me with this, is my husband is not a diabetic but he had peripherial nueropathy and cataracts before the cancer. The Aldose Reductase Inhibitors are already in Phase III trials for diabetic nueropathy and cataracts (Japan has the ARIs already approved for diabetics). As he had the problems being associated with the Aldose Reductase Enzyme in diabetics could he have too much and not be a diabetic? Is this what seems to be feeding his cancer? He finished chemo in May, 2005 and his CEA doubled the 1st of Sept. He finished surgery/radiation in May and his CEA began rising with the 1st of Sept. blood test.

I have researched it, and I find hope in it. I plan to ask the oncologist more about the enzyme and if there is a test to determine his level.

There is also recent news from I believe Korea about a virus that destroys colon cancer.

MA

[Magnolia]

This is all news to me. I would contact the center mentioned in Scott's link.

[Hannah]

This is very exciting news, but to be realistic the reason it's probably not getting a lot of "play " in the news or anything is that things like this happen fairly often.

Scientists use mice in research because for whatever reason they seem to react in similar ways to humans a lot of the time (isn't that nice, that we are so similar to mice!). That said, very few things that show up in mice actually make it all the way to drug stage - I'm not sure what % but it's extremely small.

So this is great news, but could fall apart at any time - and will probably be a couple of years until it is available even in phase I human clinical trials. A drug usually takes about 10-12 years and $100+ million from "discovery" (like what is happening here) to get to market. So that is another reason why people might not see it as so "exciting." That and I think people try to be fairly cautious so that they don't get hopes up about something that might not work.

But I think there is a LOT of reason to celebrate every time we hear news of this kind of advance! The more things that scientists find to work on, the more things will eventually work - and I always have to remind myself that many years ago, before we ever heard of Eloxatin (oxaliplatin), Erbitux, Camptosar (irinotecan), Xeloda, Avastin, Vectibix and many other drugs people have taken, there were mice who were working on those drugs for us!

Hannah

[Magnolia]

When I was an oncology nurse back in the '80's, monoclonal antibodies were just an idea. Now we have Erbitux and Avastin which are the latest cancer wonder drugs. It took a long time. Keep in mind that these drugs have to be proven safe and effective. Seems strange that they have to be proven safe when they're used to treat something that's already life threatening, but they CAN make things worse, and some potentially lethal effects don't show up until later. Usually the people who are given the drugs for the first time are people who have tried absolutely everything else with no success. That way, if it doesn't work, nothing is lost. They tried. If serious side effects start happening, the trial is stopped. (Like if people ON the drug are doing worse than the control group.) In later phase trials, they start working on different doses and combinations with other drugs, like they're doing with me and Avastin. They know Avastin works with Stage IV cancer and existing tumors. What they're working on now is proving it works in Stage II and III cancers with fully resected tumors, to prevent reccurance. No one knows for sure how well it will work, and it does have some risks, especially for older patients. (Older than me!) But it shows a lot of promise.

The new drug Scott found sounds good too. I hope it continues to show promise and the wait won't be too long. Until then, we have several new drugs we didn't have just a few years ago. If we keep buying time, more new stuff will happen.