Another great breakthrough in research science!
A new study found that an experimental drug combined with the traditional chemotherapy drug cisplatin successfully eliminated a rare salivary gland tumor and prevented a recurrence within 300 days.
The cancer is called adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), which is formed within secretory glands, most commonly the major and minor salivary glands of the head and neck. Other sites of origin include the trachea, lacrimal gland, breast, skin, and vulva.
Professional runner Gabe Grunewald was recently diagnosed with ACC again (this is her fourth cancer diagnosis…what a fighter!) and has been public about her fight.
ACC affects 3,000-4,000 people annually and is commonly diagnosed at an advanced stage where it becomes very resistant to therapy. There is no cure..for now.
But this new study offers a big hope for the near future.
In this study, researchers performed two different types of experiments to test ACC tumor reduction and recurrence. First, they treated tumors in mice with a combination of MI-773 and cisplatin — MI-773 is the experimental new drug in question, which prevents the molecular interaction that causes tumor cells to grow by attacking the cancer-fighting protein, p53, and cisplatin, a traditional chemotherapy drug.
The result? The tumors shrank from the size of an acorn to nearly zero.
In the second experiment, the acorn-sized tumors were surgically removed, and for one month the mice were treated with MI-773 only. According to Jacques Nör, professor of dentistry, otolaryngology and biomedical engineering, and principal investigator on the study:
“We did not observe any recurrence in the mice that were treated with this drug after 300 days (about half of mouse life expectancy), and we observed about 62 percent recurrence in the control group that had only the surgery. “It’s our belief that by combining conventional chemotherapy with MI-773, a drug that kills more cancer stem cells, we can have a more effective surgery or ablation.”
And while the research is still too early in its stage to know how humans will respond, and ACC tumors recur only after about 10 years (and the study’s observational period was only 300 days) – this new drug’s early signs of efficacy is a real boon for the research and cancer community.
