New 'Truly Wonderful' Drug Offers Breakthrough In Treatment Of Hard-To-Treat Cancer

A group of scientists in the United Kingdom have developed what they describe as a "truly wonderful" new drug to treat mesothelioma, a hard-to-treat cancer.

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops in the lungs and is mainly caused by exposure to asbestos at work and is linked to over 26,000 deaths globally a year. It is also one of the cancers with the worst survival rates.

mesothelioma

Breakthrough in Mesothelioma treatment

However, a group of researchers at Queen Mary University of London used the new drug ADI-PEG20 (pegargiminase) for cancer treatment and found that the survival rate increased.

The study, also known as ATOMIC-meso trial was conducted at 43 centres across five countries -- the UK, US, Australia, Italy and Taiwan, between 2017 and 2021.

Each received chemotherapy every three weeks for up to six cycles. Half were also given injections of new drug, while the other half received a placebo for two years.

Survival rate increased

Among the patients included in the final analysis were 249 people with pleural mesothelioma ¨C when the disease affects the lining of the lungs. They had an average age of 70.

UNSPLASH

Patients involved in the study were followed up for at least a year. Those who received pegargiminase and chemotherapy survived for an average of 9.3 months, compared to 7.7 months for those who had the placebo and chemotherapy.

According to the researchers, the new drug cuts off the tumour¡¯s food supply quadrupled three-year survival rates.

The findings of the study were published in the journal JAMA Oncology.

Why new drug is significant

The researchers said that this is the first successful combination of chemotherapy with a drug that targets cancer's metabolism developed for this disease in 20 years.

Freepik

"It's truly wonderful to see the research into the arginine starvation of cancer cells come to fruition," Professor Peter Szlosarek of the Queen Mary University, who led the study said.

¡°This discovery is something I have been driving from its earliest stages in the lab, with a new treatment, ADI-PEG20, now improving patient lives affected by mesothelioma,¡± he added.

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