ASCO review continues – circulating DNA
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ASCO review continues – circulating DNA

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › ASCO review continues – circulating DNA

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      • June 25, 2019 at 8:03 pm
      guynamedbilly
      Participant
      Why haven’t they started doing that like today? Seems like it would be a win-win-win. Easier on patients, quicker results, and cheaper than surgical biopsy. I’m just guessing on the cheaper part, but it seems likely.
      • June 25, 2019 at 11:08 pm
      Bubbles
      Participant
      Exactly….to you both! I have been reporting on this technology since 2014! I attended a symposium hosted by Emory, Northside Hospital and MRF in Atlanta in April of 2018. When I asked the panel of melanoma “experts” about utilizing ctDNA technology their responses ranged from “hmmmmming and hawing” to being outright rude and dismissive of a “know nothing” patient. I was less than impressed by them, to say the least. Why they would react that way? I don’t know. Are they stupid and less informed than the melanoma patients on this panel? Are they guilty of simply being lazy and not wanting to go to the trouble to do the work to institute changes to their practice methods? Are they not willing to push the FDA and others to make these simple blood tests available and standardized? I can’t say. But, I can say this technology is available, accurate, and COULD be an incredibly valuable tool to help diagnosis, choose the most appropriate therapy, and ascertain response to that therapy in melanoma patients TODAY!!!! To do less – is an injustice. It does not cure melanoma. It does not provide all or perfect answers. BUT….it is a valuable tool that could help melanoma patients a great deal.

      I guess I’ll just keep yelling. Feel free to join me! celeste

      • June 26, 2019 at 2:16 am
      lkb
      Participant
      Again, big thanks! Asking my onc about it this week. If I get an interesting reply, will report back.
      • June 30, 2019 at 10:11 pm
      jbronicki
      Participant
      Thank you Celeste! Wow, this both blew my mind and didn’t surprise me at all (the part about the medical field having access to something effective, non-invasive, and more predictive and NOT acting upon it). I didn’t even know there was something more specific than LDH (which isn’t very specific at all). Just Wow! I’m glad you stood up and questioned them (reminiscent of Jon Stewart questioning Congress non-response to 9/11 responders and their hypocritical rhetoric). They should be ashamed. Money has to be involved somewhere, because for the life of me can’t understand why insurance companies and our health plans don’t want to cover things like this (as well as preventative genetic testing) and why our best practices aren’t built around findings like these. It takes me about 20 visits to the doctor and whining and moaning and multiple treatments that don’t work on stupid stuff like sinus issues to even get a correct diagnosis for those things that don’t have any biomarker. If you had something that could guide treatment plan and potentially avoid unneccessary interventions and one that is a fairly good proxy, why the hell wouldn’t you use it?

      It blows my mind. I actually started wondering recently why ex-presidents and senators live SO DAMN LONG. I know it may not be a valid sample size and I’m sure bias is real and would need more rigorous design than my own ponderings, but one answer did come to me……they have screenings and preventative healthcare with great frequency that the public should have access to but doesn’t (especially presidents who I’m guessing have to follow a specific screening protocol and number of visits and test).. Guess what, if you screen for multiple things with valid tools or markers and frequently and catch things early, you live longer and possibly avoid catastrophic illness with catastrophic costs! Wow, what a concept!

      You rock on Celeste, thank you for standing up for all of us and asking these questions of those “leading” our healthcare!

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