ANTI-CANCER DRUGS CAN BE COMBINED IN REGIMENS THAT CURE

A combination of  anti-cancer drugs can create a strong fortress against cancer

This note is an afterthought from watching “Surviving terminal cancer” (read here about this documentary) and thinking about the legal hurdles that we have created on our path to cancer therapy and cure.

It is true that we have already developed an impressive arsenal of anti-cancer drugs, and with these we could build treatment regimens that make sense and that exceed the therapeutic potential of any current standard treatments.

So, why are we not doing this? 

According to the documentary: 

(a) the oncologists are not allowed to “combine” anti-cancer drugs in novel (not investigated by clinical trials) regimens even in terminal cancer cases; 

(b) there are rarely clinical trials that combine drugs from different companies, as a successful outcome (profit) from such treatment regimens cannot not be easily “divided” between the companies producing the drugs; 

(c) the current system of clinical trials dictates that any multi-drug combination therapy should be compared to the therapies based upon all possible combinations of the therapeutic components.

Here is a solution: if the patient is terminally ill and there is no reasonable “officially” approved therapy to give any hope, let the oncologist and patient sign a consent that relieves the doctor from any responsibility, but still allows him to assist the patient in his quest to combine drugs and navigate a novel path of treatment.