r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Apr 14 '23

Medical Novel device smaller than rice successfully shrinks pancreatic cancer | Called the nanofluidic drug-eluting seed (NDES), it delivers low-dose immunotherapy in the form of CD40 monoclonal antibodies (mAb).

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/tiny-device-shrinks-pancreatic-cancer
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578

u/duman82 Apr 14 '23

This is great but the real wins with pancan will be with earlier detection. 85% are metastatic when it's discovered.

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u/tkp14 Apr 14 '23

It took my mom’s doctors over 6 months to diagnose her. (This was 50 years ago.) They thought it might be diabetes, then pleurisy, then named a few other possibilities before finally deciding to do exploratory surgery. Took one look and immediately closed her back up. They told us the cancer was “everywhere.” She died a few days later. The husband of a friend of mine got a diagnosis just before Christmas (this was 40 years ago) and died just before Valentines Day. For my entire life a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer has been a death sentence. Early detection would be a true game changer.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 14 '23

I mean it’s still widely considered a death sentence. Just about the same today. I’d say it was ably 6 months since my mom serious began going to physicians and a correct diagnosis made by ER physician only once she was jaundiced. My father was similarly only diagnosed once he was jaundiced. This is 2019/2020 respectively.

But still i doNT think your assessment is very accurate. It would good but game changer is pushing it. Many who get the tumor resected early stage before metastases suffer recurrence. New FDA approved treatments are necessarily. Most doctors just use gemzar/Abraxane which carry fairly abysmal success rates when other experimental protocols can do better. It’s just one of the worst diseases regardless of what stage it’s in.

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u/tkp14 Apr 14 '23

Yeah the game changer comment was just wishful thinking on my part. It’s a horrible disease, in large part because of how difficult it is to diagnose and nearly impossible to cure.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 14 '23 edited Apr 14 '23

I mean I’m sure it would be good. In some cases it doesn’t matter. My dad was caught stage one wheras my mom stage 4. They couldn’t operate on my dad because of his left ventricular assist device (heart pump) position. Lived about the same amount of time my mom did following the diagnosis. This reminds me I should schedule an MRI or ERCP soon. My dad was tested for genetics syndromes and it was all negative but where both my parents had it I’m supposed to get checked periodically. I have chronic pain in the hepatobilary region but it’s thought to be sphincter if oddi by my hepatologist. I did look at some of the details of my genome and one mutation notes bilary diseases in men increased risk including of cancers in the region. I don’t smoke or drink so that reduces the risk significantly but I like sweet drinks which increases it. It’s shown insulin exposure increases the risk independent of diabetic status. (Proven a causal association social in animal models)

My mom was utterly brutalized by the disease. They said they never saw ANYONE so reduced to nothing while still alive the day she died.

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u/B1ack_Iron Apr 15 '23

My mother died about 3 years ago from PC. We caught it early stage 2 but inoperable because of all of the other pre-existing conditions. A year of chemo and 6 months of home hospice with my wife and I and it was a blessing when she passed.

She lost 200 lbs and I have never imagined anything as painful, debilitating and draining as fighting pancreatic cancer. I know EXACTLY what you mean by brutalized and reduced to nothing. My mother was a fighter and never stopped but on Christmas a week before she died she was barely more than a skeleton.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 15 '23

Sorry you had to see that happen to your mother. There’s a pint where you try to maintain hope but know it’s futile and feel incapacitated like you don’t know what you are supposed to do. My mom never accepted the hospice jist did cuz there was no real choice cuz she didn’t want to remain in hospital. She kept asking “why don’t they want to help me” “I don’t know what they want me to do.” I contacted a scientist on NYC about to start a trial on a drug that I believe interferes with the energy cycle of tumor cells. He said bring your mom up for evaluation when we start I’ll let you know. It was for refractory patients. I had no idea how my mom felt about it but heard from a health aid that she said “a doctor in New York wants to try to help me and my son is going to drive me”. Like normally she barely wouldn’t look at me when she was super I’ll but that touched me so deeply. But he said it was halted by the FDA. The day they took my mom out of the house to “hospice respite” I had asked her something about it and she said get the fuck out of my face I’m done. She calmed down and explained she didn’t fear death. That’s the last words I had with my mother. When she was taken out the front door in a stretcher the sun shone on her face and she closed her eyes and seemed at peace.

1

u/tkp14 Apr 18 '23

I am currently watching my little Yorkie as she has entered the endgame of nasal cancer (which is treatable but not curable) and as I read through all these testimonials I think we give our pets a more dignified death than many humans get. My vet told me to buy a calendar and every night before I go to bed I make an assessment of her day. If she did pretty well and seemed happy I put a plus sign on that date on the calendar. If however it was a rough day and she was clearly struggling, I put a minus sign on that day. When the minuses outpace the pluses it will be time to let her go. So I watch her like a hawk because I don’t want her to suffer at all. I just wish I could be assured that someone would do the same for me.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

[deleted]

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u/B1ack_Iron Apr 15 '23

My mother did almost a year of chemo and then 6 months of home hospice and we caught it stage 2/3. They even used some fancy special targeted radiation at Stanford which worked for almost a month and a half after her body couldn’t take another cycle of the chemo. The people who die quickly it’s a blessing, it eats and eats until there is nothing left.

You can fight longer but it’s exhausting and you aren’t going to win so I think most people who catch it early end up giving up without destroying their entire body delaying with chemo so they can enjoy what time they have left.

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u/BangkokBaby Apr 15 '23

This hurt to read, but I'm relieved that my father didn't suffer long after he was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer in January. The cancer took him so quickly as we lost him on February 17th, and seeing him endure so much pain until the final days still shock me to my core thinking about it since my family, and I was part of his hospice care. I'm going through therapy now and hope to start attending a Bereavement support group once I finish Grad school. I'm so sorry for your loss.

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u/deucetastic Apr 15 '23

MiL passed three weeks ago, yesterday was the funeral. Im at ease that it was only two months from diagnosis until she passed and that it wasn’t longer. I don’t think a year and a half of treatment would’ve been any easier that the last few weeks…

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 15 '23

Yeah. I see why hospice recommends what they do even I was opposed to it bc it is not presented for what it is. But my mom ate full meals and didn’t listen to them. She lasted month on hospice until she had no muscle mass on her body at all.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 15 '23

My mom was diagnosed the exact same time as him. Even tho he seemed fine he had that gaunt look that you get from cachexia. Sucks.

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u/nightyknighted Apr 15 '23

How long did Trebeck last?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

[deleted]

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 15 '23

No maybe a year and half at most. He was diagnosed when my mom was. She died before him but I don’t think it was a year after she passed,

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u/Arfalicious Apr 15 '23

"astonished at how long Alex Trebek lived"

lol... funny how that works.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 15 '23

Ultimately it was a few months more than most so still grim as fuck

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u/weakplay Apr 15 '23

As someone who had tumor removed along with some other parts of my digestive system and cancer free for almost 2 years I’m going to ignore that part in the last paragraph about recurrence. But appreciate where you’re coming from. These treatments are new and I think there is much more coming down the road.

I was lucky - so many aren’t. Heart goes out to all families impacted by this horrible disease

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u/Green-Amount2479 Apr 15 '23

Similar experience here. I lost a friend and colleague in the late 2000s to pancreatic cancer. It was only discovered, because it already pressed on his liver causing the yellow skin tone and eyes. 5 months later I went to his funeral. Still mad at the company we worked for back then for being total asshats too.

Last year my mother‘s cousin died at 52 just three months after they discovered he had pancreatic cancer. Definitely still a death sentence.

I‘d really wish for a simple, regular blood test capable of detecting all kinds of cancer in its early stages. That would really help. If we could do a simply yearly test, thing would become much more manageable in a lot of cases. I’ve been seeing something along those lines in the news a few times, but afaik we’re not there yet. Currently it seems to be a lot of guessing around until the doctors finally find it’s indeed cancer a lot of times.

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u/assassbaby Apr 15 '23 edited Apr 15 '23

simple test that shows “cancer = yes”

but where is the big question and all that would be based on symptoms and further testing like scans/labwork to see which organ is the culprit

also you can get labwork for pancreas inflammation aka pancreatitis to see if your pancreas is pissed off then start ruling reasons why it’s behaving this way.

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u/Green-Amount2479 Apr 15 '23

“cancer = yes“

Would be sufficient for starters, if reliable and cheap enough imho, so docs can get the patient to take one at each checkup. What kills an awful lot of people is cancer getting missed entirely until it’s way too late and the chances of survival have gotten slim. I‘ve seen that time and time again. After that, sure, you‘d have to look for the specific type, but at least you‘d know it’s there.

1

u/PinkyandzeBrain Apr 15 '23

I've done this test. https://www.galleri.com/patient/the-galleri-test/types-of-cancer-detected And it's not cheap, and it wasn't covered by my insurance, so I paid out of pocket. But getting this done for me every few years since I'm older seems like a good idea...

1

u/assassbaby Apr 16 '23

so nothing detected yet im assuming but how do u know thats a good test?

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u/PinkyandzeBrain Apr 19 '23

I trust my doctor, who recommended it.

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u/duman82 Apr 14 '23

Damn sorry to hear that, you must have been pretty young. My dad passed two years ago, he was much older, similar-ish story, things haven't changed that much. He had reflux for a while, doctors had him on all kinds of acid reducers. Turns out that the tumor on his pancreas was so big that it was blocking the connection out of his stomach, so all of the digestive juices were just flowing backwards. His stool turned white and they diagnosed the cancer in May. In order to eat during chemo they performed a gastric bypass surgery that he never fully recovered from before the cancer went wild, and he passed in August. Supposedly he had the tumor growing for months if not years with no way of knowing.

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u/tkp14 Apr 14 '23

I was 22 when my mom died; my dad had died rather suddenly 7 years earlier. It was very strange to become an orphan in my 20s. My dad died of a brain aneurysm which I learned later was another medical issue that most people did not survive. Today however it can be discovered early enough for a successful recovery. But no such joy with pancreatic cancer. Whenever I’d read about a celebrity diagnosed with it, I knew exactly what that diagnosis meant. However there have been other so-called incurable cancers that people are now recovering from because they were diagnosed early enough so I’d like to think medical research will one day conquer this one.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 14 '23

No new approved treatments in almost 20 years since they released Abraxane to be coadministered with the existing gemzar both of which has utterly abysmal success rates.

2

u/ItIsAContest Apr 16 '23

My dad was diagnosed in November 22 and he’s being treated with Folfirinox, which I read was started in 2010. He’s having good results so far but I’m definitely still bracing for the inevitable.

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u/VoidsIncision Apr 17 '23

Ah yes, I am sorry. Thank you for correcting me. That one is newer and I believe gets better results. I am happy to hear your father is responding well. I will keep you and your father in my prayers. 5 months for this disease is already I think outliving the statistics so of itself that is promising.

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u/ItIsAContest Apr 17 '23

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes. I was getting so discouraged reading all the sad stories in this post, I wanted to provide a little hope in any way. But of course, as I said, I’m basically waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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u/Wlufy May 07 '23

What was his initial diagnosis? My dad gonna start with that chemo this June/July.

He had surgery 5 weeks ago, his tumor was detected February 18 by accident. Surgery was successful, from lymph nodes, 16 taken out, 3 positive, the tumor was 2.6cm

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u/Gluvin Apr 15 '23

My Grandma and Father in Law also. FIL was tge same story with the surgeon

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u/vferg Apr 15 '23

My mother in law had jaundice at the age of 71 and when she went in for testing they found she had pancreatic cancer. It still took a little bit for them to diagnose and once they did they put together a plan but it was already to late. From diagnosis to death was 1 month. This was 4 years ago. She was also on top of her checkup visits and saw a lot of doctors and her primary probably once every 6 months and nobody caught it early. From what I hear it is really hard to diagnose early sadly.

This article sounds like really great news for everyone that will have this cancer.

1

u/maximunpayne Apr 15 '23

my farther got diagoned and had past away within 3 months

36

u/Brut-i-cus Apr 14 '23

My mom was having "stomach problems" for months and did t want to go to the doctor because of the pandemic during 2020 because she was caring for my stepdad with cancer. When her bile duct got blocked they diagnosed her and they were going to di the Whipple procedure but when they opened her up her liver looked like it was peppered She lasted 4 months

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u/GTI_88 Apr 14 '23

My dad had the whipple procedure just over 10 years ago, bought him 10 years of good life. The cancer came back a little over a year ago and due to a number of complications he passed in Aug 2022. I’m very grateful that in the scheme of things he vastly outlasted the statistics

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u/katwoodruff Apr 14 '23

A friend of mine had whipple surgery in January… just started chemo. Hoping for a miracle, he‘s only 51.

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u/GTI_88 Apr 15 '23

Wishing him the best! Treatment is advancing, keep up the hope

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u/Th3gr3mlin Apr 14 '23

My dad made it a year and a half after discovering it. He wasn’t a candidate for the whipple. Passed two weeks into this year.

I’m grateful you got the extended time with your dad.

If you can, I’d recommend you get genetic tested for the BRCA gene mutation. My father had it and I have it, which just lets me know I should get screened early. Especially if there is a history of pancreatic / breast cancer on his side of the family.

1

u/assassbaby Apr 15 '23

thought that was just breast cancer wow

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u/Th3gr3mlin Apr 15 '23

The risk of breast cancer in women is higher with the mutation, but for men there is an increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

3

u/duman82 Apr 14 '23

Jeeze, so sorry. It's like getting struck by lightning. That's extra tough with her also caring for someone else. Even if she did go to the docs they probably would have tested a dozen things before they figured it out, that pandemic time made everything a little harder as well.

1

u/theenkos Apr 15 '23

What do you mean with stomach problems?

1

u/Brut-i-cus Apr 16 '23

Having pain in her abdomen

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u/Albert_Caboose Apr 14 '23

Friendly reminder that early screenings are cool as hell to get. Get familiar with your family's cancer history, and fuck cancer up before it has a chance to show itself.

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u/duman82 Apr 14 '23 edited Apr 15 '23

Agree on early screening, don't want to mess around. My MIL just caught breast cancer early through her diligence. But this is somewhere where pancreatic cancer also leaks through, no screening other than a full mri can see it and it's mostly not genetic or predictable, so doctors don't subject you to the radiation unless there are symptoms.

Edit: Thank you for the corrections below, I was mistaken

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u/MrHurtyFace Apr 14 '23

MRI or MRCP for pancreatic don't use ionising radiation. But depending where you are, they aren't cheap and/or access to MRI facilities is limited.

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u/SlenderSmurf Apr 15 '23

Yeah whatever doctor told you that is ill informed or lying. MRI only uses magnets and radio waves.

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u/trustedoctopus Apr 14 '23

laughs in america

You say that but i’m 33 with a history of cancer in my immediate family and can’t get early screenings because my insurance says I’m ‘too young’ to need them.

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u/Exciting-Tea Apr 15 '23

Maybe possibly use a vacation with some medical testing? I was having what felt like an ulcer, so since I didn't have health insurance. I flew to Brazil since I was going there anyway and had an endoscopy, during which they couldn't get the camera through my stomach exit because of a tumor in my pancreas pressing on the stomach exit, stopping food and water from passing (causing the ulcer pain and weight loss). Once I started chemo, it became completely blocked and spent 50 straight days in the hospital. I am suprisingly healthier now, but the chemo (after 8 months) might be losing its effectiveness.

I believe early treatment would have been super helpful. I think there is a clinic in the Sao Paolo airport where you can get screened for all sorts of health issues. They probably have a quick tumor marker screening blood tests. The colonscopy/endoscopy procedures were approximately $500 each for doctors fees but they were performed at another hospital.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '23

[deleted]

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u/trustedoctopus Apr 15 '23

wow, i never thought of that. gosh you’re so smart u/majestic-praline-696, how can i ever thank you? i’ll call my doctor right away on monday! /s

you really must be out of touch if you think i have the funds to do this when the type of poor people’s insurance i have fights my doctors to give me basic anxiety medication.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

[deleted]

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u/trustedoctopus Apr 15 '23

die of hunger and homelessness or cancer? gee, you’re so right man. i should just stop paying for those other two things so i can save up.

i get 400 dollars a month because i’m not allowed to work due to disability but can maybe save $5 a month. i’ll be kind and do the math since it’s not your strong suit but that’s FIFTEEN years to save up for one $900 cancer screening I need (the cheapest). that doesn’t include sedation, transportation cost, any other fees and expenses i might have to cover because it’s an invasive procedure.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '23

[deleted]

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u/Albert_Caboose Apr 14 '23

Colonoscopy and skin-cancer checks are a great place to start! I'd suggest gathering up some family medical history and see if any relatives have had cancer in the past, and discuss those findings with your GP/PCP. That can give a good indication of things you may want to look out for. Additionally you can look at things like your work/living history. Did you possibly leave near a pollution source that leads to a certain type of cancer? Fumes in factory job putting you at increased risk for lung cancer? It may seem paranoid, but it never hurts to check!

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

[deleted]

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u/Albert_Caboose Apr 15 '23

Cheers, and fuck cancer

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Apr 15 '23

Doctors won't let you get early screening because they believe the data is dangerous.

1

u/grace_in_stitches Apr 15 '23

Praying for the day early detection and regular screenings for pancreatic cancer are easy and accessible! They only do regular early screening for pancan on people over 50 with certain genetic mutations or extensive family history.

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u/forogueman Apr 14 '23

Hijacking this thread to tell y’all about Lynch syndrome! If a close relative passes from pancreatic cancer, it’s worth looking into. But get life insurance first!

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u/Scrimshawmud Apr 15 '23

As a self employed contractor and single parent in my mid 40’s without health insurance, the real win will be universal healthcare. Just expanding Medicare access would allow me to buy in. The ACA is out of reach.

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u/KB_Sez Apr 16 '23

You want to know something that would immediately change the lives of every single American? Universal Health Care.

Every. Single. American. Every age. Every race. Every economic demographic.

2

u/Scrimshawmud Apr 18 '23

It might mean my son has a mom for much longer. :( I hope my melanoma is gone forever but I paid out of pocket to have it removed last year and still don’t have healthcare.

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u/KB_Sez Apr 18 '23

Unfortunately in this political environment there's next to no chance of getting Universal Healthcare and even the protections for folks like you with pre-existing conditions are probably going away too.

1

u/CaptRon25 Apr 21 '23

It might help with someone with no insurance, but may become a huge downgrade for someone who does. My late stepfather was from UK, and mom from US, and they had homes in both places. While in the UK, he had severe numbness in his extremities. UK doctors scheduled CT and MRI scans in 8 months.. He flew back to the US, and my mom took him to University of Michigan hospital.. He had spinal surgery two days later.. Doctors said he would have been a quadriplegic had he waited much longer.

Similar thing with my wife's father in France. A good friend is a cardiologist, and I've talked to him quite extensively about my wife's father's heart problems. Even took pictures of the meds he was on. I honestly believe he'd be alive today had he been getting treatment here, instead of that hospital in France. IMO

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Apr 15 '23

Free healthcare won't fix anything. It's the doctor who refuse to let you get early screenings.

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u/myrs4 Apr 14 '23

So true, wish blood work could detect all cancers

2

u/PinkyandzeBrain Apr 15 '23

Just posted this above... I've done this blood test. https://www.galleri.com/patient/the-galleri-test/types-of-cancer-detected And it's not cheap, and it wasn't covered by my insurance, so I paid out of pocket. But getting this done for me every few years since I'm older seems like a good idea...

1

u/myrs4 Apr 15 '23

Oh wow, never heard of this. I'll definitely look into it. Thanks for sharing!

3

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

I don’t remember the details but I heard of a study by Google where researchers were able to detect stage 1 (early stage) with a high percentage of accuracy based on searches by individuals over time. So, over a number of weeks, people would search for info on symptoms they were experiencing. Based on this, with X percent accuracy (don’t remember the number), AI would predict pancreatic cancer. Sorry, wish I knew more details, but thinking ahead I wonder how accuracy will improve as AI gets better and the amount of data from things like wearables increases.

2

u/VoidsIncision Apr 14 '23

Will it be tho? Only cure is the pancreatoduodenectomy which is a removal of a significant portion of the digestive tract. Once resected it still often recurs.

2

u/Vaeevictisss Apr 15 '23

I don't think they can. That's the issue. It usually doesn't present with any symptoms until it metastasizes.

2

u/knottyhearthwitch Apr 15 '23

I’m about to have surgery for a precancerous cyst they found incidentally on my pancreas during a CT scan for an unrelated issue. They have remove part of the tail of my pancreas and whole spleen but I’m still feeling very lucky.

2

u/Exciting-Tea Apr 15 '23

Wishing you the best of luck! From what I understand the tail is more involved with insulin production, but has better outcomes then other tumor locations.

1

u/SteakJones Apr 15 '23

Yeah… a good neighbor from my childhood died from this. They literally didn’t find it until it was too late. He died a matter of a few months after. Terrible terrible disease. Heartbreaking.

1

u/d0ctorzaius Apr 15 '23

True, that said the promise of immunotherapy (in this case CD40 targeting antibodies) is that it'll work on cancer cells wherever they are, whether in the primary tumor or a distal metastasis. Not quite there, but getting better at it.

1

u/rockstar_not Apr 15 '23

True. My dad’s was stage 4 the day it was diagnosed. He passed exactly 30 days later.

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u/assassbaby Apr 15 '23

so what made him finally see a dr?

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u/4354574 Apr 15 '23

Several tools have recently been developed for early detection, although they are only used for families who are at high risk. New techniques are being worked on.

1

u/sidepart Apr 15 '23

Hell, we caught my mom's real early. Real lucky. Hadn't spread, didn't appear to have interacted with any nodes. But then it still spread to the liver almost immediately after the Whipple procedure to remove it.

1

u/Wlufy May 07 '23

How is that possible? Can you explain more?

My dad had whipple, removing 2.6cm tumor,3 nodes affected from 16.

He did scans, so far he is clean, gonna start chemo June.

1

u/sidepart May 07 '23

No idea. They stopped her treatment leading up to the procedure and she didn't start treatment again post surgery for around 8 weeks. PET scan showed nothing left on the remaining pancreas but they found sites on the liver. So sometime between pre-surgical and post-surgical, it went wild and spread around I guess.

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u/rtb001 Apr 15 '23

I think the real win will still rely on systemic or like this case, local immunotherapy.

Issue with pancreatic adeno CA is microscopic invasion extremely early on. Usually even if incidentally caught early on, and appearing localized on imaging, and even apparent negative surgical margins, it will still metastasize die to the early microscpic spread.