In the future fight against cancer, doctors are looking beyond afflicted organs -- whether lung, brain or stomach -- and finding new answers by disrupting the genetic mechanisms of specific tumor cells. Novel cancer drugs at the center of a major medical meeting this week point to a future in which patients are more routinely tested for gene mutations underlying their cancer to match them with a targeted treatment.
That would represent a major shift from the current medical paradigm, in which a patient's disease is more closely identified with an area of the body to determine what battery of chemotherapy or other one-size-fits-all regimen is needed.
"We are not waging a single war against a single enemy," said Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute. "It is literally hundreds of different diseases ... in every domain of cancer there is a puzzle to be figured out."
Advances in genetic sequencing are helping scientists to solve some of those puzzles, and the number of experimental compounds has mushroomed. New data on several targeted drugs released this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology showed the progress made in making this mode of treatment a reality after many years of research.
"We have proof of principle in some tumors where we have identified a target ... we can actually make an enormous difference in the outcome," said ASCO President Dr. Michael Link.
Story continues below Advertisement
Advertisement Advertisement In one of the most talked-about studies, advanced melanoma patients given an experimental pill, vemurafenib, developed by Roche and Daiichi Sankyo were 63 percent less likely to die than patients given chemotherapy.
Vemurafenib is designed for use in patients with tumors that have a mutation in a gene known as BRAF that allows melanoma cells to grow. About half of all melanomas have the genetic aberration.
"This agent is producing responses that have really been unheard of with chemotherapy," said Sandra Horning, head of global development for oncology at the Roche's Genentech unit.
She declined to talk about market expectations for the drug, but did say Roche would launch it with a companion test for diagnosing the BRAF mutation.
Another study presented at ASCO found that matching therapies, most still experimental, to the genetic markers led to higher rates of tumor shrinkage and survival for patients with advanced cancer.
And while there is still a high correlation between genetic mutations.....
Continued at link
Click for Full Text!
Poster Comment:
This seems to be a early practical application of nano-technology,which IS the wave of the future when dealing with disease,injury,or even genetic problems. And it makes perfect sense. What better way is there to deal with a problem that to go right to the root of it and cure it there? If a genetic mutation creates a cancerous tumor,going to the genetic level and altering those cells so they don't produce any more tumors has to be the most effective way to correct the problem.
