Breakthrough for ovarian cancer patients: Half of women in trial respond to new drug

Patients with advanced ovarian and lung cancer could now have months longer to spend with their loved ones thanks to the early trial results of a new treatment.

According to a report published in MailOnline, the new treatment sees combination of drug vistusertib and chemotherapy drug paclitaxel stopping the growth of cancer for nearly six months and causing tumours of some to shrink.

The study got published in Annals of Oncology.

The research, lead by a team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, said the findings show 'promise'.

The study tested the drug combination on 25 women with high-grade serous ovarian cancer and 40 patients with squamous non-small cell lung cancer.

All those involved had advanced cancers and for each patient standard treatment had failed.

The results saw 52 per cent and a third 35 per cent of lung cancer patients treated with the combination had at least a 30 per cent reduction in the size of their tumours.

The treatment stopped both types of cancer from growing for an average of 5.8 months.

Speaking to media, Professor Udai Banerji, of the drug development unit at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden, said that they combined chemotherapy with a targeted drug which blocks the way cancer cells react to treatment in order to survive.

Commenting on the result being ‘very exciting’, she added, “Over half the women with ovarian cancer and over a third of lung cancer patients saw their tumours shrink – and these are patients who had exhausted all other options.”

The researchers developed the drug combination after noticing ovarian cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy have high levels of a molecule called p-S6K, which may help them to grow quickly.