- Home
- Medical news & Guidelines
- Anesthesiology
- Cardiology and CTVS
- Critical Care
- Dentistry
- Dermatology
- Diabetes and Endocrinology
- ENT
- Gastroenterology
- Medicine
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Obstretics-Gynaecology
- Oncology
- Ophthalmology
- Orthopaedics
- Pediatrics-Neonatology
- Psychiatry
- Pulmonology
- Radiology
- Surgery
- Urology
- Laboratory Medicine
- Diet
- Nursing
- Paramedical
- Physiotherapy
- Health news
- Fact Check
- Bone Health Fact Check
- Brain Health Fact Check
- Cancer Related Fact Check
- Child Care Fact Check
- Dental and oral health fact check
- Diabetes and metabolic health fact check
- Diet and Nutrition Fact Check
- Eye and ENT Care Fact Check
- Fitness fact check
- Gut health fact check
- Heart health fact check
- Kidney health fact check
- Medical education fact check
- Men's health fact check
- Respiratory fact check
- Skin and hair care fact check
- Vaccine and Immunization fact check
- Women's health fact check
- AYUSH
- State News
- Andaman and Nicobar Islands
- Andhra Pradesh
- Arunachal Pradesh
- Assam
- Bihar
- Chandigarh
- Chattisgarh
- Dadra and Nagar Haveli
- Daman and Diu
- Delhi
- Goa
- Gujarat
- Haryana
- Himachal Pradesh
- Jammu & Kashmir
- Jharkhand
- Karnataka
- Kerala
- Ladakh
- Lakshadweep
- Madhya Pradesh
- Maharashtra
- Manipur
- Meghalaya
- Mizoram
- Nagaland
- Odisha
- Puducherry
- Punjab
- Rajasthan
- Sikkim
- Tamil Nadu
- Telangana
- Tripura
- Uttar Pradesh
- Uttrakhand
- West Bengal
- Medical Education
- Industry
New class of drug leads to 30% reduced risk of death for bladder cancer patients
A new type of drug that helps target chemotherapy directly to cancer cells has been found to significantly increase survival of patients with the most common form of bladder cancer, according to results from a phase III clinical trial led in the UK by Queen Mary University of London and Barts Health NHS Trust.
The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine and were presented at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology's Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.
Urothelial cancer is the most common type of bladder cancer (90 percent of cases) and can also be found in the renal pelvis (where urine collects inside the kidney), ureter (tube that connects the kidneys to the bladder) and urethra. Globally, approximately 549,000 new cases of bladder cancer and 200,000 deaths are reported annually.
One of the most widely used treatments for this type of cancer is chemotherapy which works by targeting all the cells in the body, successfully acting upon cancer cells, but also affecting non-cancer cells, causing side effects.
A new class of drugs known as 'antibody-drug conjugates' (ADC) work by having an antibody attached to a chemotherapy-like drug. The antibody specifically targets and attaches to the cancer cells, bringing with it the chemotherapy-like drug, allowing it to only act upon those cancer cells and ignore normal cells in the body.
The trial involved 608 patients in 19 countries and tested a new ADC drug enfortumab vedotin, developed by Astellas Pharma Inc. and Seagen Inc., in adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who were previously treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and an immunotherapy drug called a PD-1/L1 inhibitor. It found that:
- The risk of death was 30 per cent lower with the new drug than with chemotherapy, with a median survival of approximately 13 months for the new drug.
- Median progression-free survival, which is the time without progression of cancer, was 5.6 months for the new drug vs. 3.7 months for chemotherapy
- Overall response rate, the percentage of patients with either complete or partial response, was 40.6 percent vs. 17.9 percent of patients in the chemotherapy arm
- The side effects of the drug were manageable and overall similar to chemotherapy.
Lead UK researcher, Tom Powles, Professor of Genitourinary Oncology at Queen Mary University of London, and Director of Barts Cancer Centre, Barts Health NHS Trust, said: "This new type of drug has led to a survival advantage in bladder cancer which has been difficult to achieve in this difficult disease. It reduced the death rate by 30 per cent and beat chemotherapy in every setting, so this really is a big deal."
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2035807
Hina Zahid Joined Medical Dialogue in 2017 with a passion to work as a Reporter. She coordinates with various national and international journals and association and covers all the stories related to Medical guidelines, Medical Journals, rare medical surgeries as well as all the updates in the medical field. Email:Â editorial@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751
Dr Kamal Kant Kohli-MBBS, DTCD- a chest specialist with more than 30 years of practice and a flair for writing clinical articles, Dr Kamal Kant Kohli joined Medical Dialogues as a Chief Editor of Medical News. Besides writing articles, as an editor, he proofreads and verifies all the medical content published on Medical Dialogues including those coming from journals, studies,medical conferences,guidelines etc. Email: drkohli@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751