New drug for all types of cancer?

[AlaskaAngel]

If it has real merit, the cat is out of the bag and despite any bureaucratic aggravations, a way will be found eventually. Both government and private enterprise have a vested interest in anything that would save enough money on health care to make it happen.

AlaskaAngel

[Merridith]

Interesting article. Especially for people who are coming to the end of their options.

I know that I for one would be willing to take a chance on a drug like this..... one that has already been tried in humans with very few side effects. I mean, a few side effects seem to be a lot less threatening next to the chance of winning a terminal disease, versus the guarantee of letting the disease win.

I'll bet it won't be long before dichloroacetate (DCA), shows up in a country near you............Mexico, India or China.

I am also optimistic that a drug this promising will be getting a lot of public support and donations. Think of the "Walk to End Breast Cancer" that is coming up fairly soon...............that raises MILLIONS all around the world. What if it just this once went to fund this particular drug? We can do this. It will happen.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that THIS is the winner!

Good luck to all,
Merridith

[Christine MH-UK]

From the University of Alberta Department of Medicine: http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/ . I put the interesting bit into bold:

Investigators at the University of Alberta have recently reported that a drug previously used in humans for the treatment of rare disorders of metabolism is also able to cause tumor regression in a number of human cancers growing in animals. This drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), appears to suppress the growth of cancer cells without affecting normal cells, suggesting that it might not have the dramatic side effects of standard chemotherapies.
At this point, the University of Alberta, the Alberta Cancer Board and Capital Health do not condone or advise the use of dichloroacetate (DCA) in human beings for the treatment of cancer since no human beings have gone through clinical trials using DCA to treat cancer. However, the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board are committed to performing clinical trials in the immediate future in consultation with regulatory agencies such as Health Canada. We believe that because DCA has been used on human beings in Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials of metabolic diseases, the cancer clinical trials timeline for our research will be much shorter than usual."

[AlaskaAngel]

I think the practice of conducting tests first on humans with mets and last on the newly diagnosed has one possible serious flaw, and that is, that most of the things tried on mice are then tried on humans whose cells have been whacked but good by various treatments. So I just hope they use this mitochondria waker-upper first on human mitochondria that are just sleeping and not chemo/rads-mutations....

AlaskaAngel

[heblaj01]

AlaskaAngel,
I understand your point that trying experimental drugs on advanced disease runs the risk of total failure which may stop further research & perhaps prevents finding their potential on early disease.
But using patients with early stage disease in clinical trials would be of no concern if the disease were not a deadly one. And since there are usually effective treatments for these patients, putting them through an uncertain process is a potentially high risk choice for the patient & an ethical problem for the prescribing MD who is supposed,before all, to cause no harm.

On the other hand for patients who have exhausted all approved treatments & are in dire condition, I don't understand why it is almost never possible to get access to an experimental treatment. Except, maybe,this is the result of the fear of legal procedures by the medical community & by the government agencies.

[AlaskaAngel]

Yes, it is a question of balancing risks and benefits. But in the case of DCA, where the risks have already been established in patients and it is FDA approved for other purposes, I hope to goodness the tests are done on the newly diagnosed so that we don't miss the boat entirely on this one just because we "always" test patients with mets first instead of patients who correlate to the mice, whose cells have never been compromised by other therapies first.

AlaskaAngel

[Christine MH-UK]

The University of Alberta's medical school website http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/has a section of their website that provides all of the articles. After reading them, I can see why this is a big deal. Apparently because DCA has been safely used in humans, including children before, this could get into use fairly quickly. I figure that if it works this could help some cancer patients who currently lack good treatments, such as patients in the world's poorest countries, and those who suffer more from very harsh treatments, such as children and the very old.

The scientists need to get approval for a trial and the money together as well. They are trying to raise at least some of the money necessary through their website. It's nice to see a scientists at least try to get a trial moving on a non-patented medicine. The strategy I am using is to give them a little now so they can do their phase I/II trial and then, if it works out, I will give them more.

http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/