The randomized, double-blind phase 3 trials came out and it turns out the helmet almost triples 5 year survival rates. For "high compliance" patients (i.e. those that followed their directions and wore the helmet in accordance with the treatment plan), 5 year survival rates jumped 6x. They're selling $600mm of these helmets a year now. Progress is uneven but it's always coming!
Thanks @missedthecue, i wasn't aware this was productized and tested (though hoped it was)
The biggest effect seems to be interfering with mitosis (cell division) and causing cells that attempt mitosis to die.
In adult human brains, most cells don't divide, except cancer cells.
I was highly confident there was absolutely no way in the world wearing Bluetooth Earphones would have any kind of impact on my brain, but now this would seem like a possibility?
Wireless headphones emit 10-400 times less energy than smartphones do. My personal takeaway is that you're safe.
Of course there are dose effects and non linearities so we should very very likely be good. But huh.
more recent update from 2025 June 11: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14800467/Professor-...
“for one in six deaths around the world, killing nearly 10 million people a year globally and over 600,000 people a year in the US.”
A lot of reduced deaths come from less smoking and early detection. We will eventually get there but we need a lot more research.
Get a colonoscopy at 45. We are seeing a big increase in younger people.
https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/colorectal-cancer-awaren...
Looks like colonoscopy is better from your link.
Colonoscopy is a more invasive procedure obviously, but complication rates are very low. It's worth it to find a great gastroenterologist to do the procedure.
N.B. this is not just an increase in detection (as could happen with more/better screening where the true rate isn't changing), but mortality:
> In people under 55, however, death rates have been increasing about 1% per year since the mid-2000s. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/abou...
However, the fact that mortality has been decreasing above the age of frequent screenings, and increasing below that age, tells us that whatever the problem, the symptom (cancer) could be addressed with better screening, leading to earlier detection and treatment.
Mortality is increasing in young people because they don't get screened, so when it does happened no one catches anything until it's too late.
If the age for recommended regular colonoscopies was 40 or 45, we would see the same mortality reduction above that cutoff.
I think obesity is the main confounder in all such statistics. Thats the thing that has most markedly gone up over the past decades
There are lots of other new chemicals not shown on that chart that are in our food and clothes and everything, particularly almost everything modern babies in the US come in contact with.
There's also a lot that was never stopped, and more and more coming all the time.
Last week I finished a two month diet where a big chunk of my weekly calories and nutrients came from cheap staples I prepared myself (specifically brown rice, black beans, steelcut oats, spinach, and eggs).
Aside from the food, the cost was 1. watching some ads in the free version of the calorie counter app I used to make sure I was getting the nutrients I needed and 2. ~$30 for a food scale so I could be precise about what I was eating.
Circumstances make it easier to be unhealthy but what I did is attainable by the vast majority of obese people.
Obviously, it cannot be 100% on the individual. Because then, how did we get an obesity epidemic? Did people somehow, magically, become more lazy since 1970? That doesn't sound plausible to me.
It's systemic in nature. Consider tobacco use, a problem we've largely solved in the US. We went from something like 50% of people smoking in 1960 to about 10% now. In young people, the results are even more drastic. It's sort of magic - a reverse obesity epidemic.
How did we do this? A combination of things. Of course people worked very hard to quit, but they also got PSAs and their doctor's helped them. And then we made it much, much harder to smoke.
The thing is, people are creatures of influence and habit. Much of what we do is because it's low resistance. We've allowed obesity to become a systemic problem because of our food available, our culture, and our lifestyles.
It's not that some place like, say, Paris is healthy. But it's a lot easier to be accidentally not-obese in Paris, France than in Paris, Texas.
That said, for someone with increased risk, nothing compares to a colonoscopy - at it does a better job of catching things early, before you start getting blood in your poo.
But if you are at a standard risk, doing a fobt every couple-few years is hugely important. Ask your doctor now!
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1311194
Currently on 5 yearly review until I hit 50, as my oldest brother had the same cancer at 56, which sadly took his life, so I am not of standard risk.
Reading summary of that paper:
"The numbers of persons who would need to be screened to detect one cancer were 154 with colonoscopy, 166 with DNA testing, and 208 with FIT." So I'll still stick with a colonoscopy until something better comes along.
Of course, the best prevention is one that people actually do.
All in all, nothing to worry about, just do it.
Colonoscopies are no big deal from my perspective, but they do have some risk; bowel perforation being the primary one. The prep stuff is the worst aspect for most patients; I used to love lemon lime Gatorade before I used it once as a way of drinking the liquid laxative...
As an aside, Godwins law apparently needs a corollary name for trump. Almost every thread on here anymore brings him up. I understand people are emotional about it, but it sure is getting old.
The anti-science movement runs deeper than just Trump unfortunately.
So while I am as sick as anybody about hearing about him, on a thread about advances in cancer treatments, it would be awfully weird to ignore the elephant in the room. Just sayin’.
We need better (earlier) detection and faster access to it.
Luckily Urgent Care was able to go from ultrasound to CT scan in 1 day. The long wait time has come from the insurance honestly.
Had to go to a different hospital because the original one I went to has to get an approval from United before getting it done (other hospital 2 blocks away doesn't have that same requirement??)
I got referred to a dedicated cancer center and then guess what, I have to call United and ask them to approve it - but I can't get an appointment to do that for 2 weeks.
Ended up doing all the legwork on my own and was able to get a consultation done within a week. Now I'm having to do biopsies, PET scan, ect. Depending on the result I might be able to get it removed next week!
But the pain has become so severe I can't eat, sleep, even lay down without extreme discomfort. I can't imagine waiting around on the insurance to walk me through it.
Funny enough, United sent us a letter in the mail asking if I really wanted to get that original CT scan! Like no, I'd rather not know I have a 7" tumor in my abdomen. Simply a joke of an industry
I wonder if this is regional. I was able to get an MRI scheduled within a couple weeks when I needed one for my non-urgent condition. This was in Chicago, so maybe we're just blessed with a surplus of MRI machines.
How long? It took me 1 day to get a CT at a clinic and a few hours in the ER.
Meanwhile there are imaging labs that can do walk-ins if you're willing to pay cash and they have the slack in their schedule, usually somewhat cheap compared to what they'll bill insurance (and if you have a HDHP, what you'll pay). They don't want those machines idle, a gap in the schedule is money they aren't making.
It 100% depends on your situation. I've had two clinical MRIs done in my life. One was same day. One was scheduled out a few days.
also, recently ferroptosis made the news as general mechanism to kill metastases https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08974-4
seems like a new path too, the more the better :)
ps: apparently cancer drug resistance is linked with tumor adaptability which relies on iron and copper, and these researchers leverage this as a weapon against itself, very clever
This article made big news in France recently, but I have not heard of it anywhere else. I'm wondering if that thing is really the revolution it's been touted and I just missed the international news talking about it, or if it's just another example of "Look, France is great!" propaganda by french media.
Edit Note: I'm french.
I lost my father to cancer last year as well - the medical system failed him, his pain treated as exaggerated and his symptoms ignored until it was far too late.
There’s no win for our dads, but I hope the progress prevents future people like them from facing what they did.
Obviously it didn't work out as we wanted, but she had real hope and prospects. A decade ago, her diagnosis was a guaranteed death sentence. It a nasty business, but at some level, oncology is a field where we stand on the shoulders of those before us. The hope that these tragedies we experience will help future victims brings some comfort personally.
Is that winning? I dont know. But the likelihood that my other parent would still be around if they got their same cancer now is already higher than it was when they passed. Nothing can bring my other parent back but we can prevent others from losing their loved ones.
how do i know? i work in precision oncology for a decade plus
This is the first step in the commoditization of any new treatment, no? Initially expensive but that creates competition to bring the price down.
[Maybe not in the US though because the customer cannot select their supplier]
I'm alive because pharma developed an expensive drug that, at the time I got it, was only administered to 42 others before me.
I was a single person working my first job out of college with Blue Cross Blue Shield and got the best I think was available.
You might be jaded after working so long in a difficult industry; the medical research/pharma work done matters to the patients who receive it and get another decade+ of good life.
If we're lucky congress won't be bribed, I mean lobbied for the sake of safety, into criminalizing its importation.
The death rate goes down but the number of cancers increases. Cancer is extremely painful even if you survive.
Cancer treatment should be like taking antibiotics, a week of pain and it is over. We should activate the natural inmune defences instead of extremely invasive chemotherapy.
We are far from that.
More seriously: cancer is no joke and so are the treatments.
Yeah, it's a shame researchers don't work on immunotherapies for cancer, I bet they could do some nifty shit with engineered t-cells.
Now, seeing that cancers once thought to be nearly hopeless have five-year survival rates going up, it’s really impressive. I just hope we’ll keep seeing more good news like this in the future.
it’s more like countless small battles happening all at once
I hope your friend is doing okay.
there without a doubt will be another one at some point in time imo
Around 1990, several key shifts occurred in U.S around cancer:
- Federal Advertising Restrictions (1980s → 1990s trend)
- Cigarette ads were already banned from TV and radio since 1971, but by the late '80s and early '90s, there was increasing pressure to further restrict tobacco marketing, especially to youth.
- Synar Amendment (1992)
Required states to prohibit the sale of tobacco to individuals under 18.
States risked losing federal funding if noncompliant.
Late 1980s to early 1990s: many cities and states began passing clean indoor air laws restricting smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and public areas.
Examples: San Luis Obispo, CA (1990) banned smoking in all indoor public places.
States began exploring lawsuits against tobacco companies for Medicaid costs related to smoking-related illnesses.
CDC established the Office on Smoking and Health as a national anti-smoking effort.
American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation and other groups pushed for local ordinances.
Several states raised cigarette taxes as a deterrent and revenue tool.
EPA expanded its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), classifying substances based on carcinogenic risk.
Substances like benzene, formaldehyde, dioxins, and asbestos were formally assessed and increasingly restricted.
Major overhaul targeting hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), including 189 known or suspected carcinogens.
Mandated technology-based emissions standards for industries emitting these substances (Maximum Achievable Control Technology - MACT).
Examples: emissions from chemical plants, refineries, dry cleaners.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration tightened exposure limits for carcinogens (e.g., formaldehyde, cadmium).
Enforcement of hazard communication (HazCom) standards requiring MSDS labeling for toxic/carcinogenic workplace chemicals.
Expansion of EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act), empowering communities to track local industrial emissions via the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
Helped spotlight local exposure to carcinogens.
CERCLA (Superfund) activity peaked; sites with carcinogenic contamination (e.g., PCBs, VOCs) were targeted for cleanup.
Public concern about cancer clusters near toxic waste sites gained visibility.
Required businesses to label products or areas with chemicals “known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.”
Influential beyond CA due to market pressure on manufacturers.
One of the best wins for longevity historically has been hygiene, safety design for products/places/processes, avoiding wars, and using fossil fuel to replace slavery. Medicine helped (particularly vaccines, antibiotics, and emergency surgery), but you can't offset society-level problems with it, especially since it's more expensive to scale.
So when I see such a graph, I always look for more general reasons first.
We'll see a similar drop once we tackle sugar, weight gain, and various legal and illegal addictive substances.
Life expectancy seems to continue to trend upwards.
My wife is alive and healthy with T1D, which doesn't matter at all for your claim, but the aggregate evidence for all T1D seems far removed from humanity failing diabetics.
A cure for T1D is coming.
https://x.com/MakisMD/status/1845353670407233817
https://x.com/skymeds_store/status/1919695848222687548
https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-fo...
You laughing your ass off triggers alarms.
All the proof I need. Although she died 3 weeks ago, but he swears it wasn't from the cancer but old age.
/s
> Most Oncologists abandoned their Hippocratic Oath, gave contaminated mRNA Vaccines to all their cancer patients and took the mRNA jabs themselves.
> Some Oncologists have now developed mRNA Induced Cardiac arrests, blood clots and Turbo Cancer. Others have already died suddenly.
> These Oncologists buried their heads in the sand and abandoned everything that it takes to be a good competent doctor.
No, it's pretty damn deranged. If you have a good medical treatment, you can confidently let the data do the talking for you instead of hooking into political controversies to score some points for yourself.
"First-in-the-World Ivermectin, Mebendazole and Fenbendazole Protocol in Cancer has been peer-reviewed and published on Sep.19, 2024!"
Fenbendazole purportedly slows down cell division, allowing the immune system a chance to catch up with the cancer cells.
So they would seem to employ similar mechanisms. I hope more clinical trials are performed soon.
Three years ago on May 26, I was declared in complete remission at MD Anderson, a month after a CAR T-cell infusion. I am still in complete remission after multiple PET scans and CT scans.
The specific therapy I received (Yescarta) was approved by the FDA for refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma on October 2017. It was the second such therapy approved by the FDA, and the second that year, after Kymriah in August.
Feels a bit odd to be saved by a class of therapy more than three decades younger than I am.
Is this a recent phenomenon? I never thought that children were immune to cancer.
I'm sorry.
https://vigilantnews.com/post/the-overlooked-miracle-drug-fo...
leakycap•6mo ago
Now, the rest of the chemo wasn't as easy as the first. But the miracles of modern medicine, thanks to dedicated researchers and medical teams, truly blew my mind and that was a decade ago.
I was told I was one of 42 people ever that MD Anderson had seen with this cancer, yet they were able to tailor a treatment. I think Vox is right about the progress being amazing, and I hope it continues.
wileydragonfly•6mo ago
yellow_lead•6mo ago
The greater Houston area has too much cancer, in part caused by the many refineries and chemical factories. At least there are good treatment options nearby.
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
looofooo0•6mo ago
beerandt•6mo ago
Adjust for those factors and the increased incidence disappears.
looofooo0•6mo ago
Majromax•6mo ago
'Adjusting' for those factors builds in the assumption that they're independent of the thing you're trying to measure. If living near a smokestack is undesirable, then poorer/marginalized people will live there even if it also causes cancer.
timcobb•6mo ago
EasyMark•6mo ago
comte7092•6mo ago
Environmental pollution very reasonably can be hypothesized to be a causal mechanism behind cancer rates. Exposure to which is going to be heavily correlated with race and socioeconomics.
I may be misinterpreting OP, but their statement came off as “cancer maps are just maps of where poor non white people live, so it’s not the pollution”, but you can’t just “control” for things that way. Given the fact that environmental pollution is a hazard, there’s a reason why that demographic lives there that makes the exposure to pollution not independent from the demographic characteristics of the population.
tshaddox•6mo ago
comte7092•6mo ago
tshaddox•6mo ago
comte7092•6mo ago
tshaddox•6mo ago
Spooky23•6mo ago
My mom was in public health research -- there's a ton of cancer clusters tied to industry and other factors which don't get recognized because of the methology for defining place and jurisdictional boundaries. In rural areas you have population issues because environmental impacts can be localized due to low population density.
One example at I can't find a free article online for was a 20-30 mile long county highway that was paved with oiled gravel in the 1960s and 70s. Incidence of lung cancer in non-smokers was higher than smokers in the general population, and with smokers significantly higher. Reason? A local industry donated waste oil from industrial processes to the county highway departments. They were laden with PCBs, dioxins and other goodies, delivered to your home in the form of road dust. Another was a plant that processed depleted uranium for munitions, that elevated kidney and bladder cancers in a narrow range across a few jurisdictions. The contractor settled claims there.
Around Houston, I'd expect what I experienced as a child downwind of the former Greenpoint garbage incinerator and Newtown creek refineries in NYC ... more childhood asthma, higher incidence of cancers of lung/mouth from long tenured residents, etc. Lots of nasty stuff is emitted in refining and chemical operations.
magicalhippo•6mo ago
There's been several studies[1] showing multiple different forms of cancer are over-represented among oil workers[2], and linked to benzene and crude oil exposure.
Granted Norway's oil is exclusively offshore, so exposure might be different.
But, contrary to what a former boss supposedly told his rig workers, just because oil is a natural product does imply it and its processing is harmless.
[1]: https://www.fhi.no/en/cancer/studies/cancer-among-offshorewo...
[2]: https://www.forskning.no/arbeidsvilkar-olje-og-gass/olje-pio...
burnt-resistor•6mo ago
apwell23•6mo ago
xattt•6mo ago
How does the treatment you received compare to the current standard of care? Would current therapies also result in rapid debulking as well?
leakycap•6mo ago
I was told the rapid debulking was because the first infusion I got was a targeted drug that specifically found and destroyed the cancer cells.
The follow up chemo was R-CHOP (Rituximab, Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin, Vincristine, and Prednisone), and my understanding this regimen is still being used.
Loughla•6mo ago
zevets•6mo ago
The big problem is that it's a chronic blood cancer, so the pills have a list price of $180k/yr. Who knows if my insurance will cough up for a second big-money prescription/
blacksmith_tb•6mo ago
1: https://www.lls.org/
Xenoamorphous•6mo ago
dghughes•6mo ago
Loughla•6mo ago
kolinko•6mo ago
OkayPhysicist•6mo ago
zevets•6mo ago
hansvm•6mo ago
It increases water retention (obviously not permanent or unbounded), increases appetite, and redistributes fat (giving the appearance of weight gain).
cogman10•6mo ago
A potential side effect of immunotherapy is it can cause the immune system to go haywire and start attacking non-cancer cells.
hansvm•6mo ago
burnt-resistor•6mo ago
burnt-resistor•6mo ago
0. https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/obesity-behavioral-therapy
EasyMark•6mo ago
jplrssn•6mo ago
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
Max_aaa•6mo ago
xandrius•6mo ago
It's like you've been paying your (lower) taxes in country X and now come over to enjoy the saner system. I guess you should have chosen your priorities earlier?
zevets•6mo ago
Plan B is wait until 2028, when it goes off patent. I think I can keep my job til then. I've learned from the HR folks that they just signed another 3 yr contract with the insurance company, so I'm not forseeing any major changes to coverage. This drug is super pricey, as it was originally targeted towards people with acute cancers, but now the largest market is the chronic disease patients, but they never lowered the price.
I suspect the insurer/PBM are making a small fortune off of my care. They are also being sued by the pharmaceutical industry for using a "co-pay maximizer" which caps (patients) out-of-pocket co-pays, and goes after the pharmaceutical companies' "charities" which help patients purchase their products, which the insurer then takes a cut from.
And the weight gain isn't fluid, it's definitely body fat. I think the weight gain is from the "baseline" treatment being a mutagenic chemotherapy, and the likely fact that my (previously) enlarged spleen was impinging on my stomach limiting my appetite, and the lived fact that it massively slows your metabolism, as I'm always a bit cold.
kilimounjaro•6mo ago
dumb1224•6mo ago
In the field of cancer research it has been focusing more on drug / treatment resistance, heterogeneous response to the same treatment and development of less invasive methods both in treatment and assessment (imaging and monitoring). We have made huge progress in terms of deeper understanding of cancer biology and human disease mechanism in general.
However we have a very long way to understand when things progress outside of our control how to respond. E.g the key cancer drivers have been identified long ago but how biology and evolution modulate its response to external treatment has so much unknowns. That requires large effort to push the whole foundation of science to elucidate the details of these processes in my opinion.
apwell23•6mo ago
But it rarely translates to that level of success with masses of cancer patients.
jghn•6mo ago
apwell23•6mo ago
> Within hours of the first painless infusion, the large tumors I could feel and see from the outside were completely gone.
leakycap•6mo ago
I'm not the only person with this kind of story of rapid debulking, that's why someone else chimed in with the medical term. The miracle isn't my one story; the modern miracle of medicine and the fight against cancer is that my story IS one of thousands every month that leave MD Anderson (just one hospital) and have their lives literally extended. In my case, a decade so far with no more trouble, knock on wood.
I think you cannot expect a blanket solution for cancer. Cancers are all extremely different. We will have thousands of breakthroughs for these myriad of cancer types.
apwell23•6mo ago
What is the breakthrough for prostate cancer ?
LU-177? Abiraterone/*Lutamide?
> when they do a biopsy now you get incredible detail about the subtype of cancer/cells and details that help target treatment.
There is no such thing for prostate cancer. Yes you can target BRCA with olaprib but that only works for little bit. But median OS is an improvement of only 4 months ( 15 vs 19). Sure you can live extra 4 months with heavily compromised blood definciency but hardly a breakthrough.
> We will have thousands of breakthroughs for these myriad of cancer types.
Not sure what makes you say this? We've only had improvements in survival for prostate cancer for early detection. All other improvements have been marginal at best. Chemo and hormone supression therapy are still the mainstay since the 70s. Like you are literally getting the same treatment for prostate cancer that ppl were getting 50 yrs ago.
baranul•6mo ago
leakycap•6mo ago
4 months isn't a breakthrough to you because you're not facing this reality. Wake up. You'd do anything for 4 months unless your life is hell already. Anyone who is happy would be joyous to be able to have 4 more months, it's so painful how disconnected you seem.
gaoshan•6mo ago
and that it does not require being lucky to receive, as you were.
leakycap•6mo ago
I didn't have a job with insurance because of luck, in fact I was aware enough of medical costs I chose which job I accepted based on the medical benefits.
I was lucky to be alive at a time treatment was available and within reach of a modern working person, not lucky like the Queen's nephew being promoted.
I think saying I was single and working my first job out of college should put it in perspective here. I didn't drive a Cadillac to my chemos. Stuff costs money, especially medical R&D, production, and care delivery.