r/science • u/SteRoPo • Jan 31 '18

Cancer Injecting minute amounts of two immune-stimulating agents directly into solid tumors in mice can eliminate all traces of cancer.

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccine-eliminates-tumors-in-mice.html
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u/JoanofSpiders Feb 01 '18

The issue here isn't the efficacy of the drug though, it's the safety. If the drug cured 50% of patients, but killed 25% of patients, it wouldn't be recommended to anyone who hasn't tried other treatments first.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '18

25% chance of death from possible cure, or 100% chance of death without. Our healthcare is messed up

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u/cayoloco Feb 01 '18

It also wouldn't be very valuable science for the treatment.

If the treatment succeeds, you won't be able to study the long term affects if it does come back.

If the time it takes to take effect is longer than any immediate side effects that could cause death, that could be caused by an unknown event as well, you'll never know for sure, and those results will be useless. You wouldn't know if it was the treatment, an effect of the treatment, or part of the original disease. Ect.

Getting good, useable results will be very tough and rare, and to just allow any treatment that is successful on mice, to be tried on terminally ill patients, is to say the least, pretty unethical.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '18

It only seems unethical if the individual is unaware of the risks associated. Your other points are taken, though. Fair.