From the linked @people article quoted by @washingtonpost: “The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive result in their memory…some of the tumors have already shrunk by more than 50 percent.” 1/https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/05/29/alex-trebek-faced-grim-chances-surviving-cancer-now-he-says-its-near-remission/ …
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Far be it from me to wish ill on Alex Trebek. I hope he's one of those rare pancreatic cancer patients who survives a long time. I can also totally understand his doctors wanting to accentuate the positive. 2/
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I also understand the human interest angle and how editors world want to publish a feel-good story about a beloved celebrity seemingly bearing the odds against a dreaded cancer. 3/
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However...stories like these give a distorted picture. It's far too early to tell if Trebek will do better than average or not, even with his promising early results. 4/
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I know it's counterintuitive, but, although failure to shrink tumors does correlate with poor outcome, good initial shrinkage does not correlate very well with overall survival. 5/
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That doesn't mean that, all in all, if I were Trebek, I wouldn't prefer excellent initial response to failure to respond. If course I would! I'm just urging caution to reporters writing about this. 6/
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Remember, Trebek has stage IV pancreatic cancer. This makes it even more likely that ultimately he won't do well. Yet I see the "near remission" phrase in nearly every headline about Trebek. It's inaccurate, and editors should be more cautious and measured. 7/7
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