Researchers have found from one of the data of clinical trials, which was presented at the ESMO Congress 2021. This suggests that some new anticancer treatments are on the place of the horizon with a clear view on medication.
Signs Of Efficacy Of New Targeted Immunotherapies And Agents For Multiple Cancers
Despite setbacks in medical research during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the abundance of promising new agents and innovative therapeutic approaches currently in development is proof that the oncology field is once again looking to the future, with a message of hope closing the annual meeting of the oncology community.
New Molecular Targets on the Path to Being Hit
As a personalized medication comes to the age, a growing number of genetic changes in cancer cells are being identified as potential targets for innovative medicines as personalized medicine matures. A mutation that causes the tumor-suppressing gene ARID1A to lose function, for example, is seen in 10 to 50 percent of solid tumors, including endometrial, bladder, colorectal, and bile duct malignancies.
The experts from the research team have focused on different types of cancers while carrying out the research. This new immunotherapy has provided excellent results during various stages of research. That is why they are confident about a revolutionary therapy that can help one counter cancer irrespective of its type.
Three out of ten patients with advanced solid tumors demonstrating ARID1A loss of function have shown a clinical benefit defined as a stable disease for at least six months in a Phase II trial of the targeted drug, whose interim results were reported this year’s ESMO Congress.
Two patients with endometrial cancer stayed on the medication treatment and responded to ongoing treatment after 16 months and 21 months, respectively, after the treatment started. This result has encouraged the experts to have some more research in this area.
This data is promising, according to Dr. Rodrigo Dienstmann, who is an early medication development expert who was not involved in the study, and adds to mounting evidence that tumors with this type of alteration are potentially sensitive to targeted therapies that exploit defects in cancer cells’ ability to repair DNA damage: “We still need to figure out if this is tumor-type dependent and if additional abnormalities within the tumor need to be considered, because we detect ARID1A mutations in a variety of cancers, from gynecological to oesophageal cancers, but we don’t know if they behave the same way in each illness.”
“By going forward, it will be one of the key reasons to get a complete genomic picture of cancer throughout the next generation in the sequence beginning in the medication treatment,” he added.
The hope that medicines targeting a specific mutation could effectively treat multiple diseases in which it plays a role motivated the compassionate use of a drug approved for the treatment of PIK3CA-mutated breast cancer among patients with PIK3CA-related overgrowth spectrum (PROS), a rare, life-threatening syndrome caused by sporadic mutations in the same gene.
A retrospective review of patient files from this compassionate use program revealed that reductions in overgrowths were reported for 23 persons (74 percent) out of 31 evaluable reasons, along with clinically durable improvements.
Prof. Alessandra Curioni-Fontecedro, who is a Medical Oncologist at University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland who was not involved in the study, said, “Thanks to the increasingly widespread use of broad genetic testing, drugs we know in oncology are now finding new potential applications: the use of alpelisib is a very interesting approach for this rare group of illnesses with no approved treatment options: the use of alpelisib is a very interesting approach for this rare group of diseases with no approved treatments.”
