Target Cancer – After Long Fight, Melanoma Drug Gives Sudden Reprieve

A new kind of cancer therapy, it was tailored to a particular genetic mutation that was driving the disease, and after six years of disappointments his faith in the promise of such a “targeted” approach finally seemed borne out.

The trial of PLX4032 offers a glimpse at how doctors, patients and drug developers navigate a medical frontier as more drugs tailored to the genetic profile of a cancer are being widely tested on humans for the first time.

This is a series by the NYT. Cancer patients hang onto hope so tight no matter who they are.  This one last drug may be the one that makes a difference in their lives – lives that are worth living to them.  It’s another reminder of how much Cancer Sucks. And it Sucks in so many different ways. Can you imagine being basically on your death bed waiting to find out if you can go into a drug trial that may be the one that saves your life?  It relates very closely to what our oncologist, Dr John Marshall , wrote about recently in the Wash Post:  research is starting to look at tailoring the drugs and treatments based on genetics and not based on whether or not you just have cancer. But that means, that there will be some that will not get the treatment that possibly offers them the hope they need. It’s a very slippery slope…