New Drugs Prove More Effective in Treatment of Kidney Cancer
Good news from the cancer treatment front: The New York Times just published an article about a new study which you can find here below:
New studies of two drugs, showing that each works better than the standard treatment for advanced kidney cancer, should lead to changes in patient care, researchers said on Friday.
One study, of the drug nivolumab (sold as Opdivo), was stopped ahead of schedule because safety monitors found that patients receiving the drug were living longer than those in a comparison group taking the usual treatment, everolimus (sold as Afinitor). The study was halted for ethical reasons, to offer the comparison group nivolumab.
The other drug, cabozantinib (sold as Cometriq), was also tested against everolimus, and proved more effective at slowing the cancer’s growth. But that study has not gone on long enough to determine whether cabozantinib also prolongs survival.
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M. Dennis Sisolak, 72, whose cancer had spread, underwent experimental treatment at Johns Hopkins that allowed his immune system to fight rather than take drugs.
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Dr. Robert J. Motzer, one of the leaders of both studies, said the findings on nivolumab were a major advance that would change the field and affect most patients worldwide with advanced kidney cancer. Dr. Motzer specializes in kidney cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
About 61,560 new cases of kidney cancer, and 14,080 deaths, are expected in the United States in 2015, according to the American Cancer Society. Exact causes are not known, but risk factors include smoking, certain chemical exposures, obesity, high blood pressure, genetic mutations and heredity.
Since 2005, Dr. Motzer said, seven new drugs have been approved for kidney cancer. Before that, patients with advanced disease lived 10 to 12 months on average, but the drugs brought survival up to about 30 months.
Dr. Padmanee Sharma, the senior author of the nivolumab study, from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said, “We think this gives patients renewed hope.”….
