Today I offer you not so much a Thought for the Day but a Question for the Day. Before I ask my pressing question, though, I want you to consider this story.

Diagnosed with a rare malignant melanoma on her retina in 2001, Ann Guthrie, a South Carolina wife and mother of two grown sons, endured radiation and chemotherapy. The treatments shrunk Guthrie's tumor, but another mass appeared two years later, forcing the removal of her right eye.

At about the same time Guthrie lost her eye, cancer was discovered in her lungs. It was inoperable. Then cancer landed in her brain. And now, without any approved treatment avenues, Guthrie is out of options.

Like many people with terminal illnesses, this woman is willing to try just about anything -- a clinical trial, experimental drugs, risky treatments -- to extend her life. If she's going to die anyway, why not? She just might live longer. And if she doesn't, she could at least help advance science by offering herself up as a sort of guinea pig.

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed changes that would make it easier for patients to access options like these, it's just not that simple right now.

There are ethical issues -- like weighing the needs of people who think anything is better than death against the need of society to prove drugs and treatments work safely. The only way to ensure a sort of balance is through clinical trials -- and letting anyone participate in clinical trials, for example, would make the results harder to interpret.

And there are medical and legal risks. What if terminally ill patients end up in worse shape after a treatment with an experimental drug, for example? What if the FDA or a physician is considered responsible for adverse drug reactions?

Denying terminal patients their last bits of hope is difficult. "It's a hard discussion to have with a patient and his family," says one doctor. "There's a lot of tears. We all would love to be able to get them access to some form of therapy."

And now for my question:

What do you think about terminally ill cancer patients and their access to anything that might extend -- or save -- their lives?

A study appearing in the Journal of Clinical Oncology reveals there may be something out there that can extend the lives of patients with recurrent prostate cancer.

This something is a new class of anti-cancer targeted drugs that scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles say are quite promising, despite their ineffectiveness in some prostate cancer patients with no previous chemotherapy treatment.

Pertuzumab, a molecular targeted compound that has been used successfully in ovarian cancer patients, has been shown to block the human epidermal growth factor receptor family by binding to and inhibiting the function of HER2 receptors. They essentially block a key pathway that leads to cancer growth. And this blockage can possibly offer a better, longer life for recurrent prostate cancer patients whose diseases no longer respond to traditional chemotherapy.

Pertuzumab, marketed under the brand name Omnitarg by Roche and Genentech, is just one of many targeted cancer therapies that give researchers hope that cancer may one day be a lifetime disease that can be skillfully managed.

One week ago, researchers found themselves humbled by the disappointing fact that promising cancer drug Avastin had failed to help patients with pancreatic cancer live longer. In fact, not only did the drug fail to extend survival, it actually caused adverse side effects such high blood pressure and bleeding in the stomach and intestine.

In a study of 600 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, those who received Avastin in addition to standard chemotherapy lived for only six months -- the same amount of time as those who received chemotherapy alone.

Earlier studies predicted Avastin might improve survival. It worked in patients with advanced colorectal cancer. And so it was no surprise that crowds of pancreatic cancer patients wanted a shot at this potential wonder drug that in the end turned out -- for them -- to be not so wondrous.

A new study sheds new hopeful light on pancreatic cancer survival -- for patients 65 and older.

The study, conducted at Thomas Jefferson University and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, found patients in this age group who survive pancreatic cancer for at least five years have a better chance than patients not yet 65 at surviving another five years.

Researchers studied the records of 890 patients with pancreatic cancer who underwent the standard pancreaticoduodenectomy, or Whipple procedure. And lead researcher Charles Yeo reports that surgery can in fact extend and improve the quality of life for this population.

"Not too long ago, few lived for five years after diagnosis," he said. "Today, that not true. There's been a paradigm shift in the way we treat and think about this disease."

Additional details on this promising study can be found in the journal Surgery.

I feel fortunate to have received every cancer drug I needed to fight my breast cancer -- Adriamycin, Cytoxan, Herceptin, and every nausea pill, pain capsule, and anti-anxiety formula on the market. I got exactly what doctors thought I needed -- without worry about availability or funding or politics. I am lucky. Some in the UK are not so lucky.

Two targeted therapies for bowel cancer will not be used in Britain's state-run health system, according to NICE -- the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. NICE, the country's financial watchdog, determined the high cost of the medicines meant their use was not compatible with the best use of resources. Patients are angry because these same two drugs -- Avastin and Erbitux -- are used widely in the United States and in much of Europe. And while neither drug offers a cure for bowel cancer, both treatments have been shown in clinical trials to extend life expectancy by four or five months in some patients.

Based on doses given during the trials, it is estimated that the average cost of treating one patient with Avastin would be around 16,800 pounds and with Erbitux -- about 11,700 pounds. Apparently, this is too much. But according to Hilary Whittaker of the charity Beating Bowel Cancer, the decision to deprive patients of this medication is a scandal. I agree. And for these patients, I am sad.