Post from the NZ Herald:
Drugs give hope to melanoma patients
A cancer researcher has predicted that advanced melanoma patients could survive the disease within five years, thanks to dramatically improved drugs.
Malignant melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer and New Zealand’s fourth most-common cancer. The country has one of the world’s highest incidence and death rates from malignant melanoma.
Each year, more than 2000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 250 people die from the disease.
If a melanoma is detected early it is readily treated by surgery. Of patients diagnosed with a tumour just 1mm thick and whose cells haven’t spread, more than 90 per cent will be alive five years later. But in cases where it has spread to organs before detection, fewer than 10 per cent are alive after five years.
However, a melanoma conference in Wellington yesterday heard hopeful news about the progress of drugs in clinical trials for patients with disease that has spread – metastatic melanoma.
“These advances offer the realistic promise of our being able to convert metastatic melanoma from a death sentence to a chronic disease within five years,” said Professor Richard Kefford, the director of the Westmead Institute for Cancer Research at Sydney University.
Read more.
I think the article is a bit too hopeful regarding the time frame, but this is certainly the way cancer treatment is heading. At the moment, though, melanoma treatment is not very effective. I really have no idea when/if these drugs are going to come into widespread use, but it will probably be too late to have any effect on me (either I’ll survive without them, or I’ll die before they are around).
Well, it’s been a looong time since I updated here. The reasons for that are manifold, but the main one is that I now post regular updates on Facebook. If i know you and we’re not linked on facebook, send me a friend request. The email address I’m using there is euan DOT harvey AT gmail.com. Replace the whatsits with the doodads, of course.
For people I don’t know personally, I’ll divide this update into bits. First is health. The cancer seems to be stable at the moment. I’m not getting any new symptoms, but it could start growing again at any time, so I’m not holding my breath or about to announce that I’ve beaten it. The last conversation I had with my oncologist went something like this:
Him: “No symptoms?”
Me: “No.”
Him: “Hm.” [Grins]. “Well, that’s unusual.”
Which I guess is good.
I’m running a lot, which helps my mood and (may) help with keeping the cancer at bay. I’m registered for the Watford Half-Marathon (at least, I’ve sent off my form and they’ve cashed my check, so I guess I am), and I think they still have places. So if you live around Watford, get in there!
For writing, I haven’t touched pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, for a long time, but I will be starting again now I have achieved some measure of mental stability. The impetus came from selling two stories to Realms of Fantasy. I’m going to start with revising a couple of shorts I’ve got hanging around, and then perhaps think about starting something longer.
The family’s all good. My wife is very slowly adjusting to living in the UK. She’s started work now, which gives her much more focus. She complains about being tired–but she’s never really happy unless she’s complaining about something. She’s smiling a lot more, which tells me how she really feels.
I do intend to post more on this blog. So be prepared for a deluge of posts about running, and writing (and cancer).
Best wishes to you all for 2011.
My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain’s famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli), identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before – lies, damned lies, and statistics. Consider the standard example of stretching the truth with numbers – a case quite relevant to my story. Read the rest of this entry »
