Hundreds of women in the UK with advanced ovarian cancer are being offered what has been described as a lifeline, after a new drug was made available on the NHS. According to Sky News, the treatment is gentler on the body than existing options and has been shown to extend lives. It is the first new treatment for the disease to be added to the health service in more than 20 years, ending a long period in which patients had few new options.
The therapy works in an unusual way, combining a chemotherapy drug with an antibody similar to those the body uses to fight infections. As Sky News explained, the antibodies are designed to recognise markings known as folate receptor alpha, which appear on the surface of some ovarian cancer cells. Once they identify these markings, the antibodies travel to the cells and attach to their surface before being absorbed inside them.
After being taken into the cell, the drug breaks down and releases its toxic payload, destroying the cancer cell from within. It is for this reason that the treatment has been nicknamed a Trojan horse, because it slips the chemotherapy agent directly inside the tumour cells rather than spreading it through the body. This targeted approach is intended to limit the wider damage usually associated with conventional chemotherapy.
According to correspondent Phoebe Southworth, around 7,500 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the UK every year, and the new treatment is aimed at roughly 400 of them whose disease is at an advanced stage. For about the last 20 years, chemotherapy has been the main weapon against advanced ovarian cancer, but it can carry debilitating side effects, which the new drug is designed to reduce.
The treatment is specifically for certain forms of ovarian, fallopian tube and peritoneal cancers that have become resistant to chemotherapy, a group often described as platinum-resistant. These are patients who, as described on Sky News, urgently need something to help them, because the options available until now had stopped working. The drug is presented as highly personalised and specific, rather than taking a scattergun approach.
Clinical trials have indicated that the therapy can, on average, extend the lifespan of women with advanced ovarian cancer by around four months. While that figure may sound modest, doctors and campaigners stressed that for patients who had run out of effective options, the additional time and improved quality of life are significant. The targeted design means the drug seeks out and kills cancer cells while sparing more healthy tissue.
The chief executive of a charity supporting ovarian cancer patients told Sky News that the treatment offers hope, quality of life and extra time to people at the point of platinum resistance, when previously available therapies were no longer working. She added that, as the first ever treatment for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, it gives hope to the whole community. The report also noted that advanced ovarian cancer is often difficult to detect early, because there are frequently no symptoms in the initial stages.