4 innovations that could revolutionize cancer treatment

Cancer is one of the most widespread diseases on the planet. Luckily, there are more and more advances to treat it.

Every year, doctors from around the world meet in Chicago (USA) to share what’s new in diagnosis and treatment.

At the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology this year, the latest advances presented give a little more hope and, according to experts, they represent a change of perspective to combat some types of tumors.

Here are some of these developments and what they may mean:

1. Breast cancer: a medicine that benefits a greater number of people

The trastuzumaban intravenous treatment, has been used to treat breast cancer for decades.

It gives good results, but it has a limitation: it can only be prescribed to patients who have a gene called HER2.

A new compound, trastuzumab deruxtecan, you can change that.

“We are seeing the arrival of a revolutionary drug,” says oncologist Romualdo Barroso, research coordinator at the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital in Brasilia.

Acts like a Trojan horseBarroso explains. That is to say, it enters the body as if it were one thing, but in reality it works from another.

On the one hand, trastuzumab is a monoclonal antibody which, in the case of breast cancer, binds to receptors found on the surface of cancer cells. So “calls the attention” of the immune system, who sees cancer as a threat and begins to fight it.

The second effect is done by deruxtecan, which “invades” diseased cells. This chemotherapy drug destroys the tumor from the inside out.

The novelty is not only how it works, but that goes well even with patients who have the less developed HER2 gene. Nearly 7 out of 10 patients can benefit from it, estimates Barroso.

It is administered into a vein every 21 days and is still pending approval for hospital use by regulatory agencies.

Initially it could be used when the first treatment options have failed and there are metastases. According to Barroso, it is likely that, over time, it will also become an option for early-stage tumors.

2. Rectal cancer: medicine with surprising results (even for doctors)

Imagine a drug that makes a disease disappear in all the patients with whom the preliminary study has been done to see if it works or not.

This is what has happened with the ensayo de dostarlimab for the treatment of rectal cancer.This medication, which is already used for other tumors, stimulates the immune system to attack them.

Twelve patients were treated in the trial and followed up for 6 months. At completion, none had any evidence of a tumor in the body. This prevented them from moving on to more aggressive treatments, such as surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

“Ieven for doctors es very surprising”says oncologist Rachel Riechelmann, director of the Department of Clinical Oncology at AC Camargo Cancer Center, in São Paulo.

Despite this finding, several things must be taken into account.

First of tracking time, six months, it’s a dogíodo short. “It may be that the disease reappears a few years later,” analyzes Riechelmann.

Second, that the drug only works with patients who haven tumors with “microsatellite instability” (MSI-H). About 1% of rectal cancer cases meet this criteria.

It is not yet approved for its new use but research continues.

3. Colorectal cancer: the test that avoids unnecessary chemotherapy

Another novelty of the congress was presented by a team of researchers from Australia and seeks to rreduce the number of interventions to which a patient must undergo.

They have delved into a method known as “liquid biopsy”where tumor DNA fragments that can appear in the bloodstream are detected.

Colorectal cancer patients often undergo surgery to remove the affected part of the intestine. After recovery, many undergo chemotherapy to eliminate possible remnants of tumor cells.

This limits relapses, but being an intense therapy it can have side effects.

With the “liquid biopsy” it could be more easily determined if this chemotherapy is needed or not.

With the study, which was done with 455 volunteers, “It was possible to reduce by half the application of chemotherapy and obtain the same patient survival result,” says oncologist Rodrigo Dienstmann, medical director of Oncoclinics Precision Medicine, in São Paulo.

“The liquid biopsy has a revolutionary potential”, analyzes the doctor.

4. Pancreatic cancer: hope for successful treatment

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma may top the list of tumors with the worst prognosis.

In the last 10 years, advances have been limited to new chemotherapy treatments. In relation to more modern and less aggressive drugs, such as immunotherapy or monoclonal antibodies, positive results had not yet been seen for this type of patient.

Now the first tests using a method called CAR-T cell treatment against this type of cancer.

It involves extracting the patient’s own immune cells, modifying them in the laboratory, and reintroducing them into the body so that they recognize and attack the tumor.

Although it is extremely interesting, it is not something that will be available tomorrow in our clinics“, ponders Paolo Hoff, professor of Clinical Oncology at the University of São Paulo.

“There is a long way to go, but at least now we have hope that we can be on the right track.”

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