Curing cancer's mental toll

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Aug 09, 2024 View in browser   By Erin Schumaker, Daniel Payne, Toni Odejimi, Carmen Paun and Ruth Reader EXAM ROOM Agrawal | Credit: Sunstone Therapies While members of Congress and the Department of Veterans Affairs often refer to psychedelic medicine as a post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for veterans, a Maryland medical center is running trials on patients with another source of trauma — cancer. Founded by oncologist Manish Agrawal, Sunstone Therapies runs its own psychedelics studies, as well as studies sponsored by groups like Compass Pathways and Lykos Therapeutics, whose MDMA and talk therapy application is being considered by the Food and Drug Administration as a PTSD treatment. Cancer's mental toll: After 15 years doing cancer research, Agrawal felt he wasn't meeting his patients' emotional needs. "That was affecting their quality of life more than anything," Agrawal told Erin. "Even though people were cured and their cancer went into remission, they still didn't feel very good." Sunstone's study participants include veterans and sexual assault victims with PTSD and depression, as well as those with cancer. People with cancer tend to have a unique trauma profile, Agrawal explained. Some veterans may struggle with moral injury, for example, while patients who've had cancer are more likely to grapple with death and existential questions. Why it matters: Between 3 and 10 percent of adult patients with cancer experience PTSD symptoms, according to National Cancer Institute data. As many as 1 in 4 patients with cancer may experience depression. All eyes on the FDA: The agency set a target date of Aug. 11 to decide on Lykos' MDMA and talk therapy application. If it greenlights the application, even conditionally, Agrawal is ready. By the end of the fall, Sunstone will have 10 studies open. "We'll be ready for delivery when a drug is approved," he said. And if the FDA doesn't approve: "It's a matter of time before another drug comes to the market."   During unprecedented times, POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy. Live briefings, policy trackers, and and people intelligence secures your seat at the table. Learn more.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Republican critics of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz have nicknamed him "Tampon Tim," in reference to legislation he signed last year making period products free for students, according to NPR. The law is a piece of a larger movement to increase access to period products for lower-income Americans. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com, or Toni Odejimi at aodejimi@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.  CONNECTING THE DOTS Youth mental health, by some measures, may be improving. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Youth mental health might be improving slightly in recent years, according to new data from the CDC. How so? The percentage of high school students in 2023 who report feeling persistently sad or hopeless fell by a few percentage points compared with CDC survey figures from 2021. Most of those gains are among women, though men saw slight improvement. Women remain far more likely than men to report feeling sad or hopeless. Even so: Other measures didn’t yield such promising results. The percentage of students who said they experienced poor mental health remained unchanged between 2021 and 2023, at 29 percent. And the larger trends in youth mental health remain troublesome, with nearly all indicators going in the “wrong direction” over the past decade, according to the data. A separate study recently found that suicide rates in children have been on the rise since 2008. Solutions remain complicated. The exact causes of the rise in mental illness among younger populations still isn’t fully understood, experts say — and finding policies that significantly impact the trends remains a challenge.   SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW.     INNOVATORS Researchers are using a new NIH grant to study innovative migraine treatments. | Shutterstock Wake Forest University School of Medicine researchers are on the hunt for new migraine treatments, thanks to a $3.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Migraines can be debilitating, according to Dr. Rebecca Erwin Wells, a neurology professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and neurologist at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, who is leading the research team. “There’s an urgent need to find effective and safe non-opioid treatments,” Wells said in a statement. Why it matters: In 2021, more than 4 percent of adults reported being “bothered a lot” by headaches or migraines in the prior three months, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. While opioids aren’t a recommended migraine treatment, roughly a third of participants in a large 2012 American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention study used opioids, which carry addiction risk, to treat migraine pain. What’s next: The Wake Forest research team plans to study non-opioid, non-drug migraine treatments and will run a randomized clinical trial on two virtual treatments. Participants will receive eight weekly virtual sessions plus outside learning and will be expected to keep a daily online log.Enrollment for the trial is open now.   Follow us on Twitter Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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