New hope in the fight against lung cancer. Faced with the promising results of clinical trials of aezolizumab, a drug developed by Roche laboratories, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American health authority, has decided to grant it a priority review. This endorsement allows treatments that represent a significant breakthrough for serious illnesses to gain review and market faster than usual.
Stimulate the patient’s immune system
In February 2015, the FDA had already assigned the status of “therapeutic breakthrough” to this drug following the publication of the phase II trial on optimal doses and side effects. Aezolizumab could arrive on the American market by the end of 2016. It is part of the strategies ofimmunotherapy : it stimulates lymphocytes, cells of the immune system, so that they specifically destroy cancer cells. The therapeutic effects of immunotherapy appear to be superior to those of conventional treatments, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy, for different types of cancer (liver, head, neck and lungs). Aezolizumab would be of particular benefit to patients with advanced “non-small cell” lung cancer for whom chemotherapy has not been effective. This type of cancer accounts for 85% of lung cancers. According to the World Health Organization, lung cancer causes 1.59 million deaths per year worldwide.
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