Interesting article Al Musella linked to today: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5492485/Could-400-year-drug-cocktail-beat-one-deadliest-cancers.html#ixzz59efGLD2c
Cocktail of just 4 meds (listed below).
1. Atorvastatin
2. Metformin
3. Doxycycline
4. Mebendazole
I'm curious how this works. Wouldn't you need an active agent too?
Patients in the trial were given this cocktail in addition to standard radiochemotherapy:
ReplyDelete"The new study involved nearly 100 patients with glioblastoma — the fast-growing type of brain cancer affecting politician Tessa Jowell — treated at the clinic over three years with the combination treatment, as well as radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
The average survival time for glioblastoma is estimated to be between eight and 14 months — the average survival time for the patients given the new combination treatment was 27.1 months."
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02201381
"Inclusion criteria
Male or female 18-85 years old;
Diagnosed with cancer and have had such diagnosis confirmed by scan, blood markers and/or biopsy;
Is receiving or will shortly receive standard of care therapy or has completed standard of care treatment;"
It's not clear from the clinicaltrials.gov listing whether patients with progressive disease post-standard treatment were allowed in the trial. Because patients could be included in this trial after completion of standard treatments (up to how long after?), this could have introduced some degree of "immortal time bias" into the results, but it's hard to know until the study is published.
The most recent phase 3 trial for GBM (EF-14) had a median survival of about 20 months *from diagnosis* (16 months from randomization) for the standard control arm.
Let's hope that the Care Oncology study is published sooner rather than later so we can give a proper evaluation of the results. There is a label on the right for "care_oncology_clinic" to see previous posts and comments discussing this protocol.