[mikeb]

New York Times Magazine special issue on cancer

by mikeb on Sat May 14, 2016 10:04 pm

This Sunday's (May 15) New York Times Magazine is a special issue examining breakthroughs that have been made in understanding and treating cancer during the past decade. We multiple myeloma patients have seen lots of progress in treating our form of cancer during that time, so I thought this issue of the Magazine might be pf particular interest to some members of this Forum. I'd be remiss, though, if I didn't acknowledge that there's still a ways to go...

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2016/05/15/magazine/index.html

There are six articles dealing with different cancer-related topics in this issue. The lead article, "The Improvisational Oncologist," is written by Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize book, "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer."

I believe the New York Times allows non-subscribers to read 10 free articles per month, so you can read all six of these articles for free, I think, assuming you haven't already hit your monthly limit.

On a tangential note, Mukherjee is releasing a new book on Tuesday, "The Gene: An Intimate History." In conjunction with the release, he is giving a talk at the NYC Public Library Tuesday night. I was lucky enough to get a ticket and am very excited to hear what he has to say!

Mike

[MMFeb16,15]

Re: New York Times Magazine special issue on cancer

by MMFeb16,15 on Sun May 15, 2016 12:22 am

Thank you Mike. I just read about Siddhartha Mukherjee a couple of days ago and have ordered his book.

[Nancy Shamanna]

Re: New York Times Magazine special issue on cancer

by Nancy Shamanna on Sun May 15, 2016 7:52 am

Thanks Mike for posting the NYT magazine special issue on cancer. The article by Siddhartha Mukherjee is really interesting. Among other insights, it gives a good description of a bone marrow biopsy. The bravery of the 78 year old woman with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is very poignant, as she goes thru one clinical trial after the next.

[NStewart]

Re: New York Times Magazine special issue on cancer

by NStewart on Sun May 15, 2016 4:48 pm

Mike-

Thanks for posting the NYT articles link. I preordered the book a few months ago and have been anxiously waiting for its release. I'm looking forward to reading it when it comes this week.

Nancy in Phila

[Mark11]

Re: New York Times Magazine special issue on cancer

by Mark11 on Tue May 17, 2016 11:10 am

Thanks for posting the links to this. The articles were very interesting, but I have to say I did not come away with a positive view of the "future" of cancer treatment.

"Precision medicine" seems like quite a step backward from what I experienced using a therapy path that has been used since the 1970's to cure patients - aggressive combination therapy to CR to immunotherapy in the form allogeneic transplant if the combination chemotherapy is not considered a potential cure for your disease.

Having patients go to a clinic and having doctors make an educated guess at what might keep them in remission for a fixed time period does not seem like progress, in my opinion. As a younger patient eligible for aggressive therapy that is a potential cure, I much prefer a therapy path that has a track record of curing patients than one that appears to me to be just a new version of a sequential strategy that uses newer drugs.