Mesothelioma is a type of cancer primarily caused by asbestos exposure. (Representative image)
Scientists in the United Kingdom have received a “really amazing” new drug for a hard-to-treat and aggressive form of cancer. according to The guardResearchers at Queen Mary University of London found that their new treatment “quadrupled” the three-year survival rate and increased it by an average of 1.6 months. He added that the new drug, which works by cutting off the tumor’s food supply, is the first for mesothelioma in 20 years. The results are published in JAMA Oncology Journal.
Mesothelioma is a type of lung cancer that is mainly caused by exposure to asbestos in the workplace. It is aggressive and deadly and has one of the worst cancer survival rates in the world. Thousands of people worldwide are infected with the disease, and according to official figures, there are around 2,700 new cases of mesothelioma in the UK each year.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London conducted an international trial involving five countries: the US, the UK, Australia, Italy and Taiwan. For the study, led by Professor Peter Szlosarek at Queen Mary, the team saw all patients receive up to six cycles of chemotherapy every three weeks. Half of them were injected with the new ADI-PEG20 (pegargiminase) and the rest received a placebo for two years.
Among the patients included in the final analysis were 249 people with pleural mesothelioma – when the disease affects the lining of the lungs. They were on average 70 years old.
Between 2017 and 2021, atomic-meso trials were conducted at 43 centers in five countries. Patients who participated in the study were followed up for at least one year. Those who received pegargiminase and chemotherapy survived an average of 9.3 months, according to the study.
Median “progression-free survival” with pegargiminase-chemotherapy was 6.2 months, compared with 5.6 months among patients with placebo and chemotherapy, researchers said.
“In this pivotal, randomized, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial in 249 patients with pleural mesothelioma, pegargiminase-chemotherapy increased median overall survival by 1.6 months and quadrupled survival at 36 months compared with placebo-chemotherapy,” he said. .
“Pegargiminase-based chemotherapy is well tolerated with no new safety symptoms,” they added.
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According to the researchers, this is the first time in 20 years that chemotherapy targeting the metabolism of cancer has been successfully combined with drugs for this disease. The new drug works by depleting the amount of arginine in the blood. For tumor cells that cannot produce their own arginine, this means that their growth is inhibited.
“It’s really amazing to see the research on arginine starvation of cancer cells come to fruition,” said Professor Szlosarek. “This discovery is something that I have been driving since the early stages in the laboratory, with a new treatment, ADI-PEG20, which is now improving the lives of patients affected by mesothelioma,” he said.