14 DAY TRIAL // Just yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration in the US gave its blessing to a new skin cancer drug. The drug, dubbed Keytruda, is designed to treat advanced melanoma, which is a type of cancer that forms from pigment-containing cells in the skin.
Researchers with the University of California, Los Angeles, explain that Keytruda is basically an immunotherapy drug. What this means is that is works by enabling the body's own immune system to attack the cancer.
The drug achieves this by targeting a protein, i.e. PD-1, which keeps the immune system's T cells from pinning down cancer cells and raging war against them, the University of California, Los Angeles specialists go on to explain.
Cancer researchers have long been aware of the fact that the body's natural immune system could help treat cancer. However, it took several years for them to figure out a way to take the PD-1 protein out of the game and make it possible for the immune system to do its job unhindered.
“This drug is a game changer, a very significant advance in the treatment of melanoma,” explains Dr. Antoni Ribas. “For patients who have not responded to prior therapies, this drug now provides a very real chance to shrink their tumors and the hope of a lasting response to treatment,” he adds.
Prior to being approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, Keytruda was tested on over 600 patients who were all suffering from skin cancer and whose melanoma had spread throughout their bodies. The outcome of this clinical trial was most promising.
Thus, it is said that, of the hundreds of patients who were administered the drug, 72% had a positive response to it, meaning that their tumors shrank to a considerable degree. In fact, 34% witnessed their tumors getting about 30% smaller. What's more, the cancer failed to grow back.
Because this drug works by enabling the body's own defense mechanisms to fight abnormal tissue growths, scientists suspect that it could also be used to treat other forms of cancer that the immune system can recognize. Specifically, it might be possible to use it to treat lung, bladder, head and neck cancer.
Commenting on the results obtained during the 600 volunteer-based clinical trial for Keytruda, specialist Judith Gasson said, “We have long believed that harnessing the power of our own immune systems would dramatically alter cancer treatment.”
“Based upon work conducted over the past two decades, we are beginning to see the clinical benefits of this research in some of the most challenging cancers,” the Senior Associate Dean for Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Director of the Jonsson Cancer Center added.
The development of drugs like Keytruda is especially important in this day and age. This is because, over the past 3 decades, the number of melanoma cases documented in the US on a yearly basis has been steadily increasing. In fact, in is estimated that, in 2014 alone, this aggressive form of skin cancer will kill about 10,000 people and sicken over 71,000 other.