New Drug Could Be Breakthrough Treatment for Brain Tumors That Commonly Hit Young Adults, Expert Says
A top UVA Health Cancer expert highlighted how a new drug could change the treatment of brain tumors that commonly strike young adults.
David Schiff, M.D., co-director of the UVA Cancer Center’s Center for Neuro-Oncology, wrote an op-ed in the New England Journal of Medicine about the potential of this new drug. The article discusses the significance of this new drug. The drug was tested in the INDIGO clinical trial and was found to significantly slow tumor growth and extend the average time before tumors begin to grow from 11.1 months to over 27 months.
If approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration, the drug would be the first targeted therapy for low-grade gliomas. However, Schiff points out that there have been other recent advances in understanding gliomas, such as this one.
Previously, all gliomas were considered to be on a spectrum. It is now understood that gliomas with IDH mutations have markedly different biology, outcomes, and, as this study shows, vulnerability to the availability of new therapies.”
About IDH-Mutated Gliomas
Each year, approximately 2,500 Americans (with a median age of only 40 years) are diagnosed with grade 2 IDH mutant gliomas. The tumors often affect patients’ ability to think and work, and interfere with other aspects of daily life. Eventually, the tumors become resistant to treatment options and are generally fatal.
Because of the limited treatment options available, physicians usually take a “wait-and-see” approach to glioma management, withholding treatment until the tumor has progressed. Boracidenib, however, has the potential to change that, Schiff noted. The drug could be the first early treatment for glioma, giving patients an important new option for prolonging life.
In the INDIGO trial, more than 300 patients were randomized to receive either boracidenib or a harmless placebo. Neither the patients nor their physicians knew which they would receive, but Schiff described the results in an editorial as “surprising.” Not only did the patients who received Borasidenib live longer, but they did not require more toxic treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy as quickly as those who received the placebo.
Schiff was so impressed with the success of this new drug that he wrote that Boracidenib could “nail” the “wait-and-see.”
Even if this new drug is approved by the FDA, there are still many open questions as to how best to utilize it. Still, given that the existing standard therapies for these tumors (radiation and chemotherapy) are harsh on patients, with short- and long-term side effects, it would be great to have a useful and very well-tolerated treatment option.”
Source: New Drug Could Be Breakthrough Treatment for Brain Tumors That Commonly Hit Young Adults, Expert Says
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