An experimental immunotherapy drug may be the ultimate "game changer" in treatment for lung cancer patients, Reuters reports.
The drug's creators, Roche, presented detailed data abut the drug's early-stage trial presented at the European Cancer Congress (ECC) in Amsterdam.
"Hundreds of millions of euros have been spent chasing the dream of immunotherapy for lung cancer patients, but with zero results." Cornelis van de Velde, an oncologist at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands and president of the European Cancer Organisation, told reporters. "These early findings...suggest that it has the potential to open new therapeutic approaches."
Researchers said the "success" of experimental drug called MPDL3280A, used in lung cancer patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), is "great news."
"Of 53 patients with NSCLC tumours treated with the drug, 23 percent saw their tumours shrink, according to results presented at the [ECC]," Reuters reports.
"But the most encouraging numbers were among smokers, where the response rate was 26 percent compared with 10 percent of patients who had never smoked," said Professor Jean-Charles Soria of France's Institut Gustave Roussy, who led the study.
Lung cancer is a particular stubborn type of cancer to treat; once it has spread to other parts of the body, it becomes "incurable." Smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer.
"Roche's MPDL3280A is an engineered antibody that targets a protein called PD-L1 - a defence mechanism that tumours use to trick the immune system's T-cells into being inactive," Reuters reports. "By blocking PD-L1, the drug allows the T-cells to wake up and recognize the cancer, and then grow and multiply to attack it more efficiently."
Immunotherapy drugs are designed to use the patient's own immune system to fight off cancer, unlike chemotherapy, which uses powerful chemicals to kill the cancerous cells, causing side effects (vary within patients) such as hair loss, nausea and vomiting. Immunotherapy can cause side effects such as flu-like symptoms, including fever, chills, nausea, and loss of appetite.
