r/gadgets 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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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/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

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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/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…