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Medicine Science

Chemotherapy For Cancer Could Soon Be Unviable Because of Superbugs (msn.com) 76

schwit1 quotes a report from MSN: Cancer doctors fear superbugs which can't be treated with antibiotics will soon remove chemotherapy as a treatment option for their patients, a survey has revealed. Cancer patients are more vulnerable to infections because the disease and its treatments can stop the immune system from working correctly. Of the 100 oncologists in the U.K. surveyed between December 20, 2019 and February 3, 2020 by the Longitude Prize -- which was established to tackle antimicrobial resistance in cancer care -- 95 percent said they were worried about the effect superbugs could have on their patients.

An estimated one in five cancer patients need antibiotics during their treatment, according to existing research cited by the authors of the report, and cancers including multiple myeloma and acute leukemia can't be treated without them. The survey revealed that 46 percent of doctors believe drug-resistant bugs will make chemotherapy unviable. Some cancer treatments, which the report didn't name, will be obsolete in five years, 28 percent of the cancer doctors predicted. A further 39 percent forecast this would happen within the next decade, and 15 percent in two decades. Four in 10 (41 percent) said they had seen a rise in patients developing drug-resistant infections in the last year, with 23 percent of their cancer patients developing an infection during treatment on average.

As many as 65,000 cancer patients are at risk of catching a superbug infection after having surgery in the U.K. in this decade, the data suggested. Among the doctors surveyed, 5 percent of their patients who had surgery developed an infection which didn't respond to antibiotics. A total of 86 percent of the doctors said the bugs Staphylococcus, E. coli and pseudomona put cancer patients at the most risk of serious harm. The research also highlighted frustrations clinicians have with the way infections are diagnosed, with 60 percent saying laboratories take too long to identify them in their patients.

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Chemotherapy For Cancer Could Soon Be Unviable Because of Superbugs

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @09:06PM (#59745520)

    It's entirely the fault of rampant use of antibiotics by their peers that we ended up in this situation.

    • by evanh ( 627108 ) on Wednesday February 19, 2020 @09:22PM (#59745558)

      Much of the blame falls on barn farming methods too, where extreme crowding of animals exists and antibiotics at times becomes the regular treatment.

      I think unspoken push in this article is for the newer immunotherapy (diametrically the opposite approach to chemotherapy) based cancer treatments to be brought online for everyone, not just the rich.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Much of the blame falls on barn farming methods too, where extreme crowding of animals exists and antibiotics at times becomes the regular treatment.

        I think unspoken push in this article is for the newer immunotherapy (diametrically the opposite approach to chemotherapy) based cancer treatments to be brought online for everyone, not just the rich.

        It's not just the bloody farmers ruining anti-biotics. Doctors hand anti-biotics out like candy to anybody who asks over the slightest complaint of discomfort. On top of that bacteria and fungi are becoming resistant to disinfectants because of the ongoing disinfectant craze that has seen hand disinfectant dispensers sprout out of every wall of every wall of the workplace. Our IT department recently had to shoot down a loud voiced demand that every user of several dozen shared workstations should get their

        • "Our IT department recently had to shoot down a loud voiced demand that every user of several dozen shared workstations should get their own mouse, and keyboard and a personal supply of disinfection spray because of 'bacteria'."
           
          Um, yeah, hate to break it to ya, but that is probably a good idea. That has nothing to do with antibiotics.

          • by HiThere ( 15173 )

            I'm not sure about the "personal supply of disinfectant", but the rest sounds reasonable.

            Of course, in my opinion they should have their own computer, but I don't know his use case.

          • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

            Bullshit. If you keep reducing the challenge to your immune system by sanitising everything within reach, you're going to end up without much of an immune system at all.

            Now, if you want a personal keyboard and mouse because you're most productive with a Model M and trackball (or whatever), you have my full support.

            I'll respect the wishes of my father's care home and use their hand sanitiser when I visit, because those folks are already immuno-compromised, but schools, supermarkets, etc can f#ck right off.

            • by eth1 ( 94901 )

              I'll respect the wishes of my father's care home and use their hand sanitiser when I visit, because those folks are already immuno-compromised, but schools, supermarkets, etc can f#ck right off.

              Schools? I worked in an elementary school for a few years... No amount of hand washing or sanitizer will save you for the first few months until your immune system gets ramped up.

              • Typhoid center? We were talking about this today at work. Between buildings only circulating so much fresh air, children passing around what ails them which then infects the parents who then infect their co workers. Just give it up, and accept you are going to get sick. No matter what you do.
            • by K10W ( 1705114 )

              Bullshit. If you keep reducing the challenge to your immune system by sanitising everything within reach, you're going to end up without much of an immune system at all.

              Now, if you want a personal keyboard and mouse because you're most productive with a Model M and trackball (or whatever), you have my full support.

              I'll respect the wishes of my father's care home and use their hand sanitiser when I visit, because those folks are already immuno-compromised, but schools, supermarkets, etc can f#ck right off.

              Your correct but sadly it isn't just that, the major problem is knocking off all the harmless or harmful but easily suppressed by our systems organisms leaving a niche for nasty stuff to take hold that wouldn't have otherwise. This has been known for a long time and was pretty much a given back when I graduated (late 1990's biochem) and we've only got more evidence supporting it not less. Add that to weaker immune systems due to less exposure to low levels and less kids playing in outdoors and so on and it

        • by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @09:15AM (#59746596) Homepage

          Though they never realised it. They made all hospital door handles and a lot of other utensils and surfaces out of brass which is part copper and copper kills most bacteria (not sure about viruses) stone dead very quickly.

          Unfortunately brass went out of fashion for whatever reason and now handles etc are useless stainless steel or plastic.

          • by Hodr ( 219920 )

            You visit a lot of hospitals? The one by my house in the middle of nowhere has mostly auto-sensing electric doors and curtains. Not a lot of handles the average patient has to touch.

      • by Falos ( 2905315 )

        Treatment nothing, if the cows I pump $5 of antibiotic into have been coming out $10 larger on average, you don't need to be a mathematician to see it's Capitalism ho~!

      • Much of the blame falls on barn farming methods too, where extreme crowding of animals exists and antibiotics at times becomes the regular treatment.

        That may be a problem in your country, but it hasn't been allowed in the UK for decades. even in the 1980s, it was strongly frowned upon and being restricted as much as possible.

  • Yeppers, my BFF passed away from prostate cancer a few years ago. They had to take him off chemo because he had a nasty UTI bug as a complication of the cancer, and he looked like a new man and fully recovered when they took him off. He got over the UTI, went back on chemo, but the cancer spread to his spine, and he was gone within a few months. As embarrassing as it may seem, go see a doctor if you have prostate symptoms or you have noticed any lumps/deformities.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Hmm... I really don't see how I would just happen to notice "lumps/deformities" on my prostate -- but maybe your username explains why you may do so.

    • by aliquis ( 678370 )

      I have no clue what the symptoms are.

      Also I don't feel the health-care listen even when you do notice things wrong. If they can't see it at first glance it's not there and you are an idiot. (In Sweden at-least.)

      • by Anonymous Coward

        They're not allowed to. The "15 minute appointment" isn't enough time to do a medical history or ask what's going on, especially if you don't already know what's wrong.

  • Come in with whatever, go out in a coffin after untreatable pneumonia.

    • by harvey the nerd ( 582806 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @03:06AM (#59746062)
      Not all chemo protocols are the same. We found that immune sparing and immune boosting options were described in different parts of the world literature. So we used oral chemo with the same active ingredients but milder side effects, at home with immune boosting agents (drugs and supplements) that increased chemo performance. We called the doctor(s) on Skype etc when we needed their input.

      There is a lot more to it but we didn't need hospital support outside of big capital scans and specialized surgery. Even the specialized scans are more and more outside the hospital.
    • by dargaud ( 518470 )
      We have all the industrial farmers who (still) put antibiotics in animals' feed to fatten them up faster to thank for that. As soon as researchers started looking, some of those superbugs were traced back to farms. I think this is one of the main existential threat facing us, just think that before antibiotics, one out of 7 (or was it 9?) skin infection lead to death... And all this for a quick buck. Some people need to be at the end of a rope.
  • We need to invest more in real cures that don't make patients almost as dead as not having treatment.
  • I'm not saying that it's not a pertinent problem. But if you go and ask any doctor "Are superbugs a problem?" then it's going to take great presence of mind to say no.
  • Just means things will get more expensive.

    Lock them away in a quarantine room for the entirety of their chemo stay! -- it cost me $5000/night for me stay back some years ago in small-town-middle-of-nowhere, and that was just for basic treatment + an iv. This has got to be worth millions!!

    Milk the insurance for all it's worth! Best healthcare in the world, if you spend more money.

    Seriously, though.. I bet quarantine for the chemo duration would cure this problem. Rub them down with alcohol to kill what's on

    • I don't know. What is your life worth? You guys bitch about everything and have no solutions. Why don't you go out and find a better solution?

    • by isomer1 ( 749303 )
      Two issues: (1) many of the bugs are internal, so theres no available way of killing them, (2) many treatments are ongoing, so patients would spend very long periods in quarantine. I don't see a way around the superbug problem except non-chemo treatments.
      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Two issues: (1) many of the bugs are internal, so theres no available way of killing them, (2) many treatments are ongoing, so patients would spend very long periods in quarantine. I don't see a way around the superbug problem except non-chemo treatments.

        Probiotics. The biggest reason we have so much trouble with superbugs is not that they've developed antibiotic resistance so much as that the antibiotics we've used have killed off all the other bacteria whose competition for resources and built-in antibio

        • And crystals and essential oils. Those _always_ work.

          Sorry, the probiotics fad is just that.It can be _lethal_ to people with deeply compromised immune systems.

          • And crystals and essential oils. Those _always_ work.

            I've been eating crystals for the last decade and I haven't gotten cancer yet. My skin is turning blue, though.

          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Sorry, the probiotics fad is just that.It can be _lethal_ to people with deeply compromised immune systems.

            The generic lactobacillus stuff that's commonly available isn't nearly as biologically diverse as it ought to be, which makes it much less useful than it should be, and yes, there is anecdotal evidence that suggests probiotics may cause harm in rare instances. That said, ask any GI doctor and they'll tell you horror stories about c.diff, which is a rather serious, often fatal infection that is almost

            • You seem to be confusing a very specific set of disoreders, which benefit from restoring a variety of intentinal flora, with the broad rangs of medical issues that have no relation to this issue. Cancer treatment is a particular issue with quite distinct issues. On what possible basis are you suggesting that _any_ of the varieties of cancer are aided by restoring intestinal flora which were likely never disturbed until, for example, chemotherapy was used to treat the far more urgent cancer issue?

              • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                On what possible basis are you suggesting that _any_ of the varieties of cancer are aided by restoring intestinal flora which were likely never disturbed until, for example, chemotherapy was used to treat the far more urgent cancer issue?

                First, superbugs are caused by antibiotic resistance, and that antibiotic resistance begins when antibiotics fail to kill off all of a particular variety of bad bacteria, and part of the reason that this occurs is that there aren't enough other, non-pathogenic bacteria left

                • > that can help mop up the remaining pathogenic bacteria.

                  I'm afraid this is where it gets a bit self-affirming. Can you cite any reliable studies or evidence that "probiotics" provide such benefits? Even if healthy intestinal flora are useful for a variety of diseases, their ability to quench the varieties of cancer seems to be fraudulent.hype. So is the variety of supplements and dietary additives sold to encourage "healthy bacteria". I'm staring at the Scientific American article at https://www.scienti [scientificamerican.com]

                  • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                    Even if healthy intestinal flora are useful for a variety of diseases, their ability to quench the varieties of cancer seems to be fraudulent.hype.

                    Where did I say that bacteria could quench cancer? I think you misread what I said. What I said was that they can reduce the risk of superbugs, and that in people with immune systems weakened by chemo, anything you can do to reduce the risk of superbug infection is probably a good thing. :-)

                    Nor did I make such a claim. You're making claims about "the complexity

  • by kpoole55 ( 1102793 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @12:13AM (#59745898)

    earlier on, before antibiotics, they were studying phages or viruses as treatments for bacterial infections. Very hard for a bacteria to out evolve a virus that has specialized in infecting it.

    I know. Lots of concerns about virus mutations but if the virus is really tuned for the bacteria then it's mutations will come from changes in the bacteria not other tissue around it.

    Anyway, don't know why we're fighting anyway when the key to saving the planet is to kill all of us. Well, all but a few select million of us.

    • ...Anyway, don't know why we're fighting anyway when the key to saving the planet is to kill all of us. Well, all but a few select million of us.

      I'm intrigued as to why you think the planet will die. I have great confidence that nature at large will continue on. I also think most people will continue on. There are some corner cases that will literally cease to exist, like islands that are a mere few feet above sea level, but most of the land mass will still be viable. Population rates have leveled off, or are dropping, in much of the world. Not sure why you're so pessimistic.

      • That's a poorly phrased and lazy statement on my part and, of course, the one most often said in the media these days. It's not often we run into someone who looks past the end of their nose as you just did and the intent of the statement was to bring up the idea that something will happen in line with the idea that to save the planet that we know and supposedly love most of humanity must die. (Look up Agenda 21 and the agreement that humanity must be capped at 500 million with suggested amendments to bri

        • "So, the "planet dying" is really just a metaphor for the comfortable situation we find ourselves in at the moment coming to an end."

          It's not even that. It's more like "the comfortable situation we find ourselves in is changing in a way that requires us to change, and we don't like change, therefore we must expend all of our resources in order to prevent it."

          When, going along with the change is 100x easier than fighting the change. But that's humanity for you: idiotic to the very end.

          • quite so.

            (filler but attached. i remember posters on our transit buses that said "Adaptation is not the answer." with pictures on cute endangered animals when, in fact, it has always been the only answer.)

            But, we're getting off topic for the original problem of how to treat antibiotic resistant bacteria.

  • Simple workaround (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @07:54AM (#59746414)
    Where do patients usually encounter "superbugs"? Hospitals. So, what's the solution for chemo patients? Not treating them in hospitals.

    Treat them in the doctor's office, assuming it isn't in a hospital, or the patient's home.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Maybe not the doctor's office, lots of sick people go there with infections. But home, yeah, that could work.

      Problem is getting the equipment there and hanging around while it's used to make sure it's not abused and then taking it back. All adds cost and cancer often bankrupts people already.

      • To be fair, the most equipment that needs to be on-site for intraveinous chemo treatment in the vast majority of cases is an IV bag and tube and stuff, and something to hang it on. No reason that can't be done at home.

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