Sanjay Juneja: Imagine if…
Sanjay Juneja, Hematologist & Medical Oncologist at Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, shared on LinkedIn:
“If you know the frustrations that come with cancer today, imagine if…
…we could identify what tumoral characteristics or properties seem to be associated with resistance to certain therapies—accounting for that variable ’20 to 60% chance of response’. So that we’re not just ‘trying first line’ for 100% of them simply based on what organ it came from.
…we could identify what your PERSONAL enzymatic makeup / polymorphisms may be responsible for you getting toxic on ‘regular’ doses of certain chemotherapies, as well as potentially being ‘under’ dosed.
…we could understand what variables account for the wide range of responses to therapy we may not even conceive—vitamin D levels really have an impact on treatment tolerability, and potentially response? Hyperglycemia? Insulin levels? Amount of inflammation during therapy, ie ESR / CRP. Or if the frequency or amount of steroid courses or antibiotics, make a difference on duration or survivability.
Imagine if we can take the–not hundreds of thousands, but MILLIONS of ‘cancer treatment journeys’ incurred by our community day afterday, present and past, and try and appreciate patterns that can just start to possibly explain why one individual’s experience was so different than someone else’s. At magnitudes and logs higher in analysis that that remotely conceivable from just one individual’s cortex and cognitive power. And make multiple conclusions and ascertain relationships, rather than having to do one controlled prospective long term study, often with one variable, at a time–which still can’t account for confounders that, ultimately, weren’t being analoged for assessment.
Well, we do have it. We ‘been’, had it. Because at the end of the day, the lives today also matter. And I think that’s been the hardest thing about.. ‘discovering’–what really is, immediately possible. How much more optimally we can address and understand things. For now, i’ll leave one ‘hard fact’ that i’d love for us to come up with a solution to… That ‘data’ I mentioned? To crunch and dissect and get insights and better understanding from–as we have repeatedly learned how humbling medicine is when ‘we’ think we ‘know’…? –It’s not shared. People hold on to them, because of their value. Which means less volume. Less ‘power’, of study. Insulated data to keep and dissect, idk, themself. But even if it takes longer to reach conclusions that can keep people–today’s, people–alive longer?
Was beyond humbled to moderate and learn from thought leader legends Sean Khozin, Ezra Cohen , Scott Penberthy, and the man who made it all possible–Douglas Flora. Great additional convos from Eric Stahlberg, Arturo LoAIza-Bonilla, Eric Topol and so many others.”
Source: Sanjay Juneja/LinkedIn