Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: A novel pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported this week, raising hopes of long-needed better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer.
“While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study. The drug is called daraxonrasib and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90 per cent of pancreatic cancer cases — a target that had eluded treatment for decades.
The daily pills nearly doubled survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented recently at the American Society for Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.
The pills’ effects eventually wane but recipients used them for significantly longer than the comparison group stayed on chemotherapy, reporting less pain and a better quality of life as their tumors shrank. Many still were using the drug after the data was analyzed, which Wainberg said means the survival gap may widen as researchers continue tracking them.
Dr. Brian Wolpin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, presenting the findings on May 31, said the drug should become “a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, adding that researchers also will explore its use earlier in the disease, including to see if tumor shrinkage might let more patients qualify for surgery.
Maker Revolution Medicines funded the study and the Food and Drug Administration plans to expedite review of the drug. The agency is allowing what is called “expanded access” to the experimental drug for patients who meet certain criteria. The drug garnered public attention when former US Sen. Ben Sasse described on “60 Minutes” how he’s had less pain while taking it. Oncologists are being flooded with requests as the special access programme gets started.
The pills’ effects eventually wane but recipients used them for significantly longer time than the comparison group that stayed on chemotherapy.
Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms in large part because it’s hard to detect before it starts spreading to other organs. The American Cancer Society estimates about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the US this year. The fiveyear overall survival rate is 13 per cent.
A turning point
Cancer specialists not involved in the new research expressed optimism that this may be a turning point in the quest for new options, with dozens of experimental drugs in development.
The new drug targets mutations in the RAS gene family that normally regulates cell growth. So-called KRAS mutations are especially critical in fueling pancreatic cancer. But a structure that made it hard for drugs to stick to the mutated proteins meant this cancer driver was long considered “undruggable.”
