Cancer jab trial shows tumour elimination in some patients
A clinical trial has found that a triple-action cancer injection can shrink or eliminate tumours in some patients with advanced head and neck cancer. The results, described as unprecedented by researchers, come from an international study across 11 countries. The drug, amivantamab, was administered to 102 patients whose cancer had spread or returned and had not responded to chemotherapy or immunotherapy. Tumours shrank or disappeared completely in 43 patients, with 15 seeing complete eradication. The injection works by blocking two cancer growth pathways and activating the immune system. Side effects were mostly mild to moderate, and fewer than one in ten patients stopped treatment. The findings are set to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
What’s reported
The trial involved 102 patients with head and neck cancer whose disease had failed to respond to other treatments.
Amivantamab shrunk tumours in 43 patients: 28 had significant shrinkage and 15 had complete eradication.
The drug is given as a small injection under the skin once every three weeks.
Most side effects were mild to moderate; fewer than 10% of patients stopped treatment.
Patients receiving the injection lived a median of 12.5 months after starting treatment.
The drug is also showing similar results in lung cancer and is being evaluated in about 60 clinical trials for lung, colorectal, brain, and gastric cancers.
The trial excluded HPV-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, focusing on harder-to-treat head and neck cancers.
Key figures
Kevin Harrington, professor in biological cancer therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR), and consultant oncologist at the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust.
Kristian Helin, chief executive of the ICR.
Carl Walsh, 56, patient from Birmingham who joined the OrigAMI-4 trial at the Royal Marsden.
Sources: The Guardian
