For anyone with a life-threatening disease, news of medical breakthroughs is bittersweet. On the one hand, clinical trials yield evidence for another weapon in doctors’ arsenals to fight the disease. But on the other hand, the process for approval of drug therapies can feel like forever to those who the treatment might help. All that being said, women with ovarian cancer have a reason to feel these conflicting emotions.
According to UK-based The Metro, a new drug is being hailed as the biggest ovarian cancer breakthrough in the last 10 years. During the first part of the study, to determine if it is safe for human use, nearly half of the women tested, seven of the 15, experienced “dramatic” shrinkage of their tumors.
The drug, being tested under the name ONX-0801, is a different kind of cancer-fighting drug. The active ingredients in the medicine sneak into the tumor cells pretending to be folic acid. Once inside the cancerous cells, they disrupt the natural processes of the cells and cause irreparable damage to the cell.
The truly amazing part of this drug is that it specifically targets cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone. This targeted approach to cancer-fighting, it is hoped, will cause fewer side effects than currently approved treatments.
It is still very early in the testing phase for ONX-0801. Many more tests and studies will need to be performed before any government agencies will approve it for public distribution.
In the United States, the time it takes to get through clinical trials and approval is measured in years rather than months. Unfortunately, ovarian cancer is one of the more difficult cancers to diagnose because the symptoms are nonspecific and relatively common. Therefore, many women are not diagnosed until they are in the later stages of the disease.
