Linda and I, hemispheres apart
This is an
article that summarizes what I believe to be the State of the Art where current
treatment of ovarian cancer is concerned.
Be warned: it is hard
slogging. I have been reading this kind
of stuff for about seven years; even so I had to murmur “Huh?” and re-read many
times. There is so much important content
in this article that it would be foolhardy of me to attempt a summary. Plow into it on your own; it will be good
mental exercise at the very least.
Here are
some acronyms and mystery phrases I had to look up:
VEGF: Vascular epithelial growth factor. Tumors have to sprout blood vessels in order
to grow and prosper. Bevacizumab
(Avastin) is a weapon that targets VEGF.
PFS: Progression-free survival; e.g., how long
between remission and evidence that the damned thing is growing again.
HR: Hazard ratio.
A statistical term, here relating the effectiveness of bevaczimab. The lower, the better. HR = 1 means no effect.
OS: Overall survival.
Paclitaxel,
carboplatin, gemcitabine, etc. Names of
standard platinum-based chemo drugs
Pegylated: Don’t bother; a cute organic chemistry term
we can and should ignore.
So: Give it a try. It never hurts to try.
Here are several more mystery terms I forgot to explain:
ReplyDeleteAE: Adverse event; i.e., a bad side effect.
Homologous recombination deficiency: “Deficiency” you know. “Homologous” implies similarity, in a restricted sense. Your arm, the wing of a chicken, and the side flipper of a whale are homologous. More to the point, the same stretch of each of your two DNA molecules are homologs. HR, as we will call it, involves swapping stretches of DNA between chromosomes. HR sometimes is important in fixing genetic errors during cell division, so HRD can be bad for fighting off cancer.
The author of this article is one of the panel participants that gave rise to the study reported above. Here she expounds on the ability of a PARP inhibitor to prolong remission in the case of ovarian cancer. Her summary is well worth reading.
ReplyDeleteOnce, not long ago, I was scornful of treatments that merely extended healthy remission, as opposed to providing an outright cure. Not any more. I finally have accepted the obvious fact that OVCA is a nasty, hard nut to crack. I am afraid I will not live to see the day when the NCI declares OVCA curable and not something to dread. In the meantime, a series of long, healthy remissions is devoutly to be welcomed. Maybe if Linda had contracted her cancer a few years later I would have had her for quite a few more months. Another trip, maybe? But best of all, she might have lived to greet her great grandchildren. That would have been wonderful!
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-drug-prolongs-life-patients-ovarian.html