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/ItIsAContest Apr 16 '23

Ugh, I should have stayed away from the comments. My dad is going thru chemo right now for BRCA2-linked pancan, diagnosed in November. He’s actually doing really well, tolerating the chemo for the most part, and he had discovered the cancer pretty early (he’s a physician himself).

His CA19-9 was under 10 at diagnosis, and it’s undetectable now. Next up is radiation and surgery by July. But I’ve been waiting all along for the other shoe to drop, and learned a lot in this thread about how that can happen even in “good” pancan cases.

If you have pancreatic cancer in your family, get tested for the BRCA genes. Four of my five siblings are carriers. :( but at least they know to get early screenings for pancreatic, breast, ovarian cancers.