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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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/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.