[Dalewyn]

My mother passed from stage 4 gastric cancer last year. Her doctor, whom I respect and appreciate from the bottom of my heart, suggested we try immunotherapy as a last resort once chemotherapy became ineffective.

Sadly, immunotherapy was without positive effect and the side effects (which were more severe than chemo) ended up ailing my mother more than she should have had to endure.

My takeaway from that harrowing experience is that there is no in-between with immunotherapy, at least with where medicinal science currently stands. It either works miracles or does jack squat, you might as well be flipping a coin because you don't even get to have a dice.

I am also sympathetic to the over-positive delivery of these kinds of information, because... fuck, man, cancer is a fucking bitch. Pardon my French(tm).

[ramraj07]

Im sorry for your loss, cannot imagine having to watch your loved one suffer helplessly!

There is _some_ good news though, I think diagnostics are getting better at letting doctors know if immunotherapy will work in a patient or not. Hopefully that’ll save patients misery and pain if the drug doesn’t have a chance of working.

Screw cancer.

[teyc]

I’m so sorry to hear.

My sister is a cancer researcher. She said early trials often kill people because they are the sickest cases.