Health & Medicine
Roche Immunotherapy Drug Helps in Fight Against Lung Cancer
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Sep 30, 2013 04:16 PM EDT
An experimental immunotherapy drug could help provide a new treatment for lung cancer patients.
Roche, the drug's creator, presented detailed data about 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 said, via Reuters. "These early findings...suggest that it has the potential to open new therapeutic approaches."
Researchers believe that the success of the experimental drug called MPDL3280A hinges on its use in lung cancer patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). So far, it's made great headway.
In fact, Reuters reports that out of 53 patients with NSCLC tumors treated with the drug, 23 percent saw their tumors shrink.
"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.
The researchers note that lung cancer is a particularly stubborn type of cancer as once it's spread to other areas of the body, for the most part, it becomes incurable.
"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."
The drugs were through the patient's own immune system. They help to fight off the cancer, and unlike chemotherapy which can cause harmful side-effects, many believe this medication helps ward off the disease in a healthier and safer way.
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First Posted: Sep 30, 2013 04:16 PM EDT
An experimental immunotherapy drug could help provide a new treatment for lung cancer patients.
Roche, the drug's creator, presented detailed data about 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 said, via Reuters. "These early findings...suggest that it has the potential to open new therapeutic approaches."
Researchers believe that the success of the experimental drug called MPDL3280A hinges on its use in lung cancer patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). So far, it's made great headway.
In fact, Reuters reports that out of 53 patients with NSCLC tumors treated with the drug, 23 percent saw their tumors shrink.
"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.
The researchers note that lung cancer is a particularly stubborn type of cancer as once it's spread to other areas of the body, for the most part, it becomes incurable.
"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."
The drugs were through the patient's own immune system. They help to fight off the cancer, and unlike chemotherapy which can cause harmful side-effects, many believe this medication helps ward off the disease in a healthier and safer way.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone