Study of rare cancer identifies patients at highest risk of metastasis and those who would respond to immunotherapy (pheochromocytomas &

Pheochromocytoma is a rare tumor, with an incidence of three to eight cases per million population per year. The work is the largest study on this cancers' molecular causes and focuses on patients with metastatic pheochromocytomas, which account for 20% of all cases. Survival of patients with metastatic pheochromocytoma is 20–60% at five years.

Bruna Calsina explains, "The number of patients with metastatic disease that our study gathers corresponds to a population of 100 million people."

Such a large sample was necessary to achieve what they and their research colleagues have achieved with their work: to identify, at the time of diagnosis of the primary tumor, markers associated with an increased risk of metastasis.

As Robledo and Calsina explain, most patients with this type of tumor who develop metastasis do so one or two years after the diagnosis of the disease, but there are cases in which metastasis develops ten or twenty years after the initial diagnosis. The new molecular markers will help clinicians to follow more closely those patients at high risk of metastasis.

Another problem with this rare disease is that the therapies do not always work, and the reason is unknown. Up to 22 genes related to the disease have been identified, of which five have been discovered in our laboratory."

The more genes involved in a disease, the more difficult it is to study and the more complex it is to find effective therapies.

For this reason, another part of the research consisted of searching for markers that would allow treatment to be personalized. The research led by Robledo and Calsina has identified a group of patients with pheochromocytoma who could benefit from immunotherapy treatments.

"The study will be a benchmark in the field of metastatic pheochromocytoma," concludes Robledo.

Many do not wipe as broad a brush as you do, on studies.

It's not my intension to help anyone who doesn't want it, or who believes it can't be helpful, and it is your right to view these, as you see fit.

For all others, I offer these to truly help provide options to often difficult situations with studies that can be independently verified.

I see these as offering solid, actionable hope from money that was already spent, often, in part, by governments that otherwise would have sat on the sidelines, because no doctor can ever practically keep up with everything important to you—but you can. I believe we can teach ourselves AND the medical community, to benefit everyone.

For me and my loved ones, I do this work, and have done this work, for a great many years. I just rarely bothered to post these, despite knowing all sorts of better treatment approaches, due to time. I'd catalog them for personal use, and offer them in a random thread, when it seemed useful to someone.

In December 2021, I decided, with encouragement from my wife, to turn my personal work into the public. The people I most wanted to help were FReepers and Christians and others I know.

I can tell you that I, and those I know whom I've helped, have received immense benefit from selected studies. My wife has overcome 15 year old major problems every doctor said couldn't be resolved. I have mended a back issue that was thought to be intractable. I've even reversed artery plaques to a score of “0,” which was believed to not be possible, by doctors. Also, a full reversal of fatty liver was possible, with before and after scans, without losing enough weight to make it “work.” The list goes on of the “intractable” issues doctors said could not be reversed, but they often speak out of ignorance—even when it's their specialty.

Trust, but verify, anyone. I don't believe doctors are there to screw anyone over, as a whole. Instead, they speak from a limited set of knowledge they likely keep from med school days and they know they can't have a major problem if they just do what they learned 30 years ago. Heck, they still get decent success with that old knowledge, so why change it up? Besides, it takes 20-30 years for the “Medical Establishment” to coronate a new practice—despite plenty of early proof that something else was quite a bit better. For them, whoever these “Medical Elitists” are who deem a new practice (CDC, AMA, other rogue entities we and insurance companies somehow respect) are like God, and this being waits until 20+ similar studies show similar results, with placebo-controlled, double-blind studies being done, and then someone comes along and does a stupid “meta-study” that puts the icing on the cake (but another meta-study might need to get done to prove the first meta-study), allowing the Powers That Be to claim a “new” practice is upon us.

What does a “meta-study” provide? In reality, absolutely nothing, because there is absolutely nothing in it that wasn't provided by all the prior studies that meta-study looked at. All it does is summarize and throw out studies the authors think were not as valid as others. No new insights, mind you. Anyone who looked at the individual studies already knew some journals or single arm trials were “less robust,” so what did the meta-study do? Again, nothing.

I am sidestepping all of the Medical Establishment baggage and pulling actionable items directly from brand new studies, published in decent journals. I deem it a new practice, today, to be considered, today—especially if the cost or side effects are minimal. Both doctors and potential patients are free to choose, and potential patients can shop around until they get a doctor willing to consider and even act on the new study information.

I will tell you that, with virtually no exception, no doctor has ever not gone forward with what I brought to the table for myself or my wife, to correct what they initially suggested, because I brought credible, actionable material with substantive proof. I even got an entire hospital chain to change a bad practice with just a simple tweak needed to make a daily procedure, safe. I did it when I found they had a bad practice that was shown to be wrong-headed in 2016, and I requested the tweak (which they'd never done) for my wife and gave them the studies proving my assertion. They later thanked me and told me their corporate-wide practices had permanently changed.

This is why I post these threads. Everyone has this power, when properly armed and dealing with anyone who has a bit of rational thought (or fear of liability).

We can all help make the world a better place.

Sometimes, it just takes a study.

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