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Patients with advanced kidney cancer who have failed to respond to standard therapies may benefit from a new drug.
A study due to be presented to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago this week suggests that RAD001 (everolimus) can significantly extended the time without tumour growth from 1.9 to 4 months and reduces the risk of cancer progression by 70%.
RAD001 – an investigational drug, administered orally once a day – is being studied in multiple tumour types.
“This is the first and only drug to date that has demonstrated clinical benefit in advanced kidney cancer patients who have experienced treatment failure with the most commonly used first-line therapies,” said Dr Peter Harper, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Guy’s and St Thomas.
It appears to continuously inhibit the mTOR protein, a central regulator of tumour cell division and blood vessel growth in cancer cells. RAD001 is currently being studied in multiple types of cancer including neuroendocrine, breast, gastric, lung, and lymphoma.
Pat Hanlon of Kidney Cancer UK said: “Advanced kidney cancer is especially difficult to treat effectively; we are therefore excited by the results from the RECORD-1 study, which offer hope to this group of very ill people who have few other treatment options available to them.”
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American Society of Clinical Oncology
