An anti-cancer drug that uses an unprecedented "Trojan horse" approach to destroy tumors from within has shown promising results for six different forms of the disease.
British researchers have welcomed the results of the first drug tests, known as tisotumab vedotin (TV), after stopping or narrowing tumors in patients who had no option.
The treatment combines an anticancer chemotherapy agent with an antibody, a biological molecule that binds to markers on the surface of cancer cells and drives the drug inside.
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All patients did not respond to treatment, but its effects lasted on average 5.7 months and up to 9.5 months in some people, in tests involving bladder cancer, ovarian lungs and cervix that no longer responded to conventional drugs.
"What is really exciting about this treatment, is that its mechanism of action is completely new.It acts as a Trojan horse to infiltrate cancerous cells and kill them. inside, "said Professor Johann de Bono, of the Cancer Institute, looking.
"Our first study showed that it could potentially treat a large number of cancer types, especially those with very low survival rates."
New drugs are being tested in patients with advanced cancers because they may be as toxic as the disease.
However, the Bono professor said that the television had "manageable side effects" and that the drug was now moving to a larger, stage two clinical phase, using the drug as a second-line treatment for cervical cancer.
The first-phase trial involved nearly 150 patients with different types of drug-resistant cancer and its findings were published in the journal Oncology Lancet.
Patients with bladder cancer or servicecal cancer were the most likely to respond to treatment, which worked respectively in 27% and 26.5% of cases.
In esophageal cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, 13% of patients reported a benefit, but there was no response to prostate cancer.
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However, the promising results mean that ICR's Dr. de Bono team and the Royal Marsden Hospital will also test it in bowel and pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer has one of the worst survival rates of all major forms of the disease and experts hope that television could help address the lack of treatment.
"We are in desperate need of innovative therapies like this one that can fight cancer in a novel way and remain effective even against tumors that have become resistant to conventional treatments," said Professor Paul Workman, chief executive officer of the group. ; ICR.