Reviewing NET cancer research
I spent part of my morning reading a review paper on NET cancer by Diane Reidy-Lagunes and Raymond Thornton from Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. That institution carried the water for NET cancers for as long time when no one else was really doing much of anything on the disease. It remains one of the premiere groups working on NET cancer today.
…at best we have been working in pre-dawn light.
The paper, Pancreatic Neuroendocrine and Carcinoid Tumors: What’s New, What’s Old, What’s Different, illustrated the distance we have come in finding treatments for this horse disguised as a zebra–and how enormously far we have left to go. The good news is there are now significant, though not curative, treatments for pancreatic NET cancers. The bad news is those treatments rarely do much for those suffering from non-pancreatic NET cancers. It is increasingly apparent to me, at least, that while pancreatic and carcinoid NET cancers share some similarities–most specifically that both sets of tumor create excessive amounts of particular hormones–they function in very different ways otherwise. Those significant differences likely mean that drug therapies that work on one will not necessarily work on the other.
NET cancer vs. panNETs
That could mean that at some point we may come to recognize panNETs as a separate disease from NET cancer in general. That would necessitate two research tracks and individual funding sources for each. Suddenly the financial issue moves from $100 million for a NET cancer
cure to $200 million if that should prove to be the case.
…the jury is still very much out…
That is sheer speculation on my part at this point, though. We can hope that will not ultimately prove to be the case.
Other NET cancer avenues
The study also reviews the results of liver embolization trials. Again, these seem promising, but the paper makes clear that the jury is still very much out on the effectiveness of these treatments. While they clearly seem to reduce symptoms and extend life, the studies have simply not been set up to really definitively answer the question of the degree to which those statements are true.
…we may come to recognize panNETs as a separate disease…
The completed studies on RPPT have been equally inconclusive for much the same reason. The results of the ongoing trials in Houston may go a long way to answering those questions, but the results of that trial are still somewhere in the future.
New light ahead?
The paper does not address the ongoing DNA research Dana-Farber has begun on NET cancer. That is, in large part, because that research had not really yet begun at the time the paper was published. But the paper underlines the importance that research may well have in opening up new lines of research. The truth is we know so little about how NET cancer operates that at best we have been working in pre-dawn light. At worst, we have been working in midnight darkness.
…finding treatments for this horse disguised as a zebra…
The results of that research are still some months–and some dollars–away. But it will certainly result in a much better understanding of NET cancer and how it grows. We can hope that understanding will lead to to cures for all the varieties of NET cancer.
