| A few points of note: 1. This doctor is widely-described as a pathologist. So it seems unlikely he would have developed any cancer treatments as a lead investigator. 2. It's much more likely he was part of a team that developed treatments, and that his was a supporting role. 3. A quick glance at Google Scholar indicates work on multiple approaches to melanoma treatment that Scolyer had some kind of role in. The article doesn't say which one was used. 4. There is no "cancer-free" in glioblastoma. Pieces of the tumor always remain after surgery, waiting to grow back. This is part of the reason there is no cure. 5. MRI cannot detect remnants as in (4). 6. Median survival is roughly 12-15 months, so being alive at this point is not in itself much of an indication of success. Three years would be more interesting. Even three years of "clean" MRIs would be more interesting. This story keeps getting trotted out, and the journalists doing it fail to acknowledge these points. It's an extraordinarily complex disease that does not lend itself to feel-good stories. If it does get squashed into that box anyway, the result is misleading at best. |