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A key event for researchers and oncologists from around the world, the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) ended last Tuesday in Chicago after highlighting several notable advances in the treatment of the disease.
Lung cancer
New hope in the face of the deadliest cancer. A tablet, administered daily (sometimes in addition to chemotherapy) in operable cancers, has halved mortality with five years of decline, according to the results of a clinical trial which caused a stir.
Developed by AstraZeneca, osimertinib concerns patients with so-called “non-small cell” cancer (the most common form) and presenting with a particular type of genetic mutation.
The survival data is “impressive”, boasted Roy Herbst of Yale University.
“In this type of disease, for which progress is slow, a great ray of hope lights up“, reacted to AFP Iris Pauporté, of the French association of the League against cancer.
That “should change practices, and lead to a need for systematic testing of the mutation (EGFR) if these results are consolidated“, judged Muriel Dahan, director of research and development of Unicancer, the French federation of anti-cancer centers.
brain tumors
A potential new drug improving life expectancy for a type of tumour?
One treatment, vorasidenib, has improved progression-free survival in patients with glioma, according to new data from a phase 3 clinical trial, presented by the French laboratory Servier.
The drug, administered orally and daily, is based on a molecule that blocks the activity of an enzyme responsible for the progression of certain brain cancers, which are difficult to treat.
“There had been few therapeutic advances in 20 years in brain tumors“, pointed to AFP Patrick Therasse, vice president for development products in oncology at the most advanced stage at Servier. “With our targeted therapy, patients prevented cancer progression for 27.7 months, compared to 11.1 months for the placebo“, he defended.
“This precision medicine opens a door in a disease for which there was nothing until now“, told AFP Fabrice André, director of research at the French center Gustave-Roussy, the first establishment to fight against cancer in Europe.
Breast cancer
A tested treatment for early-stage breast cancer has shown a 25% reduction in the risk of recurrence, according to preliminary results from a large clinical trial.
Already used (in combination with hormone therapy) against the most common breast cancer (called HR+/HR2-) at an advanced stage, ribociclib (Novartis) has been tested for early stage cancers.
It targets proteins (CDK4 and CDK6) that influence the growth of cancer cells.
Cervical cancer
For early-stage cervical cancer with a low risk of progression, a simple hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) does not result in a greater recurrence than a radical hysterectomy (extensive removal of the cervix and part of the of the vagina), according to a phase 3 clinical study. Is the promise of a better quality of life for operated patients.
Ovarian cancer
Treatment with conjugated antibodies – a kind of small chemotherapy bomb exploding in the tumor – for some of these cancers, where 5-year survival is less than 20% and recurrence is frequent, has shown a significant improvement in survival, according to a phase 3 clinical trial.
Cancer vaccines
“Therapeutic vaccines, we talk about them more and more, there are more and more trials in progress” and “significant technological advancements“, according to Christophe Le Tourneau, head of the department of early clinical trials at the Paris-based Institut Curie.
Against lung cancer, ENT, glioblastoma or human papillomavirus -associated with several cancers-, several preliminary studies highlight this new weapon.
The Institut Curie thus presented a study on a therapeutic anti-HPV-16 vaccine in anogenital cancers and a trial on personalized vaccines – designed by biotech Transgene from individual sequencing of tumors and with tools for artificial intelligence- in ENT cancers.