THE first ever human trial of a brand new type of cancer drug has shown "exciting" results among terminally ill patients.
The international study, which included a number of UK-based patients, found that the treatment shrunk tumours or halted their growth in more than a quarter of cervical cancer patients and 27 per cent of bladder cancer patients who had advanced disease and who had stopped responding to other drugs.
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Around 900 people a year in Scotland are diagnosed with bladder cancer, and the disease claims nearly 500 lives annually. For cervical cancer, the latest data shows that around 350 women a year in Scotland are diagnosed and in 2016 there were 105 deaths.
The drug - called tisotumab vedotin, or 'TV' for short - has been dubbed a 'Trojan horse' therapy because it works by sneaking inside tumour cells where it releases a toxic substance that kills them from within.
It was also effective in 14% of ovarian cancer patients, 13% of oesophageal cancer cases, 13% of patients with non-small cell lung and 7% with endometrial cancer.
Overall, patients responded to treatment for an average of 5.7 months, and up to 9.5 months in some cases.
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, including bowel and pancreatic cancer.
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The findings are published today in the journal, Lancet Oncology.
Professor Johann de Bono, Regius Professor of Cancer Research who led the study at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said: “What is so exciting about this treatment is that its mechanism of action is completely novel – it acts like a Trojan horse to sneak into cancer cells and kill them from the inside.
"Our early study shows that it has the potential to treat a large number of different types of cancer, and particularly some of those with very poor survival rates.
“TV has manageable side effects, and we saw some good responses in the patients in our trial, all of whom had late-stage cancer that had been heavily pre-treated with other drugs and who had run out of other options.
“We have already begun additional trials of this new drug in different tumour types and as a second-line treatment for cervical cancer, where response rates were particularly high.”
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The first phase of the global trial involved 150 patients, the majority of whom had become resistant to an average of three different types of treatment.
Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, said: “We’ve seen major advances against cancer in recent decades, but many tumour types remain very difficult to treat once the cancer has begun to spread.
"We desperately need innovative treatments like this one that can attack cancers in brand new ways, and remain effective even against tumours that have become resistant to standard therapies."
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