New treatment shows early promise in multiple cancer types

PanARMENIAN.Net - A brand new type of cancer drug that acts as a 'Trojan horse' to get inside tumour cells has shown promise in patients with six different cancer types, Medical Xpress reports.

In patients with advanced, drug-resistant cancers, over a quarter with cervical and bladder tumours, and nearly 15 per cent with ovarian and lung tumours, responded to the new treatment.

The innovative new drug, called tisotumab vedotin (or TV for short), releases a toxic substance to kill cancer cells from within. The results have been so positive the drug has now moved forward to phase II trials in cervical cancer and will be tested in a range of additional solid tumour cancers.

A team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust led a phase I/II global clinical trial of nearly 150 patients with a variety of cancer types who had stopped responding to standard treatments.

The study was published in The Lancet Oncology and funded by Genmab and Seattle Genetics.

The researchers found that a significant minority of cancer patients responded to the drug, with their tumours either shrinking or stopping growing.

They saw responses in 27 per cent of patients with bladder cancer, 26.5 per cent with cervical cancer, 14 per cent ovarian cancer, 13 per cent with oesophageal, 13 per cent with non-small cell lung and 7 per cent with endometrial cancer (although not in any men with prostate cancer).

Responses lasted an average of 5.7 months, and up to 9.5 months in some patients.