Current Event 13
Chemistry 9
4 June 2015
Melvin, Don. "Researchers Hail New Cancer Treatment: Unlocking the Body's Immune System." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 01 June 2015. <http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/health/immunotherapy-cancer-treatment-advance/index.html>.
For my current event, I read the article, "Researchers Hail New Cancer Treatment: Unlocking the Body's Immune System" by Don Melvin, which talked about a new breakthrough in treating melanoma and lung cancer. New research centered in New York has found that a combination of two immunotherapy drugs help to fight off some cancers by "switching the immune system back on" and allowing it to fight back. The two drugs, "ipilimumab and nivolumab, stopped the deadly skin cancer melanoma from advancing for nearly a year in 58% of the cases." Not only does it treat melanoma, a skin cancer that can spread to "the lungs, liver, bone, lymph nodes, and brain", but in some cases it was also found to help lung cancer. Even though the research seems to be all positive, 36% of patients have had side effects to the drugs, causing them to have to stop the treatment. The side effects mainly included "inflammation of the stomach and bowel serious enough to require hospitalization." Also, because this research is quite new, the long term side effects, if any, are unknown. The article states that, "Nell Barrie, a spokeswoman for Cancer Research UK, while calling the results "encouraging" and "promising," told CNN that much remains to be learned and the new drugs would not replace any of the existing cancer treatments." So all of the treatments used before should still be used now such as, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
This research is an amazing step towards uncovering the possible cure for cancer. It may not apply to all cancers and it also may not completely work, but it is still a gateway to new discoveries that could change millions of peoples lives. Dr. James Larkin, the lead author of the melanoma study, said "We've seen these drugs working in a wide range of cancers, and I think we are at the beginning of a new era in treating cancer."
This article was very well-written and informative, but I do wish that the order of the paragraphs was a little bit different and that they gave a little bit more information on the drugs that were used. Instead of explaining in the article exactly what the two drugs did to the immune system and how it exactly helped, they had it in the video above. So instead of saying the drugs did, they gave a very brief explanation at the end of the entire article, saying that the drugs boosted up the immune system. The author could have definitely gone into more depth. Other than that the article was very interesting and I hope that this will provide us with more information about how to stop cancer.
This article was very well-written and informative, but I do wish that the order of the paragraphs was a little bit different and that they gave a little bit more information on the drugs that were used. Instead of explaining in the article exactly what the two drugs did to the immune system and how it exactly helped, they had it in the video above. So instead of saying the drugs did, they gave a very brief explanation at the end of the entire article, saying that the drugs boosted up the immune system. The author could have definitely gone into more depth. Other than that the article was very interesting and I hope that this will provide us with more information about how to stop cancer.
Rachel Billings 6/4/15
ReplyDeleteMelvin, Don. "Researchers Hail New Cancer Treatment: Unlocking the Body's Immune System." CNN. Cable
News Network, n.d. Web. 01 June 2015.
.
This review of the article “Researchers Hail New Cancer Treatment: Unlocking Body’s Immune System” by Sarah is very interesting and informative. I liked how she explained what drugs the scientists were using and what they were being used for. I also like her use of statistics, like what percentage of the patients has this worked on. For opinion of the article is very accurate, which is also a plus. I didn’t like how she put some lines in quotations, but then she never cited them. I am assuming these quotes were from the article, but it would be nice to know who said them, whether it was the author or someone else. I also didn’t like the grammar mistakes in her review, it made it slightly harder to read. Overall, though Sarah’s review was really good. Cancer is a serious issue and it's nice to get updates on its situation, especially if it has something to do with curing cancer.
Melvin, Don. "Researchers Hail New Cancer Treatment: Unlocking the Body's Immune System." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 01 June 2015.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/health/immunotherapy-cancer-treatment-advance/
I read Sarah’s review of the article “Researchers Hail New Cancer Treatment: Unlocking the Body’s Immune System.” I think Sarah did a great job when she talked about what the article did well on and what could have been done to improve the article. I liked how the article talked about the way this new technology could potentially help cancer patients but it also talks about the setbacks (the side effects) since this technology is still new and more research needs to be done. It was helpful when Sarah and the article added quotes from doctors or researchers which help strengthen their points, and the statistics gave people an idea of how well the tech works. It is important to know about this new technology and like Sarah said, it can be an improvement and can help millions of people who have cancer. This article could have gone more in depth about the differences of using this tech versus using the old treatment methods such as surgery or chemotherapy since in the article one of the quotes was about how surgery was still needed even if you use the new tech which confuses me a bit (does the new tech improve chances of curing cancer but surgery is still required in order to have the best possible outcome?). Overall Sarah did a great job on her review and it was interesting to learn about this new tech.