NEW CHEMO TO TACKLE FAST-MOVING TUMOURS

A NEW drug which could halt the spread of multiple aggressive cancers is also expected to reveal exciting study data this week.

Known as DS-7300, it targets a protein found in hard-to-treat forms of the disease called B7-H3, delivering a dose of chemotherapy directly into cancer cells. The treatment, the result of a collaboration between Japanese pharmaceutical firm Daiichi Sankyo and Sarah Cannon Research Institute, is the first to target B7-H3. Early trial data showed promising results in patients with aggressive forms of the disease which spread quickly throughout the body, including prostate cancer, head and neck cancer and lung cancer.

Of the 70 patients recruited to the trial in the US and Japan, all of whom had failed to respond to previous treatments, more than 30 saw their cancer stop growing and remain stable over a year later.

Further data from the trial will be presented this week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium being held in San Francisco. Dr HendrikTobias Arkenau, medical director of Sarah Cannon Research Institute UK, said the treatment had already shown ‘amazing responses’.