Cancer breakthrough as doctors celebrate new 'wonder drug'

One thing we can all agree on is that cancer is f**king horrible and the news of a breakthrough 'wonder drug' is always welcome.

Researchers have recently announced the 'truly wonderful development' of a new drug that is able to combat against a hard-to-treat cancer.

The new drug - developed by a team of scientists at Queen Mary University of London - helps treats mesothelioma, which is a type of cancer that develops in the lining that covers the outer surface of some of the body's organs.

With there being around 2,700 new cases of mesothelioma each year in the UK, just two percent of those people are expected to survive for 10 years beyond their diagnosis.

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However, scientists have now claimed that the new treatment has 'quadrupled' three-year survival rates and increased average survival by 1.6 months.

249 patients who took part in the study - led by Professor Peter Szlosarek at London's Queen Mary university - all received chemotherapy every three weeks for up to six cycles.

Half were also provided with injections of new drug, called ADI-PEG20 (pegargiminase) while the other half received a placebo – also known as a dummy drug – for two years. Bare in mind that the average age of the patients were 70.

The ATOMIC-meso trial, which was sponsored by Polaris Pharmaceuticals, was conducted at 43 centres across five countries between 2017 and 2021.

“In this pivotal, randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial in 249 patients with pleural mesothelioma, pegargiminase-chemotherapy increased significantly the median overall survival by 1.6 months and quadrupled the survival at 36 months compared to placebo-chemotherapy,” the authors wrote.

“Pegargiminase-based chemotherapy was well tolerated with no new safety signals.”

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Professor Szlosarek said: “It’s truly wonderful to see the research into the arginine starvation of cancer cells come to fruition.

“This discovery is something I have been driving from its earliest stages in the lab, with a new treatment, ADI-PEG20, now improving patient lives affected by mesothelioma.”

Dr Tayyaba Jiwani, science engagement manager at Cancer Research UK, which funded the early stages of the research, said: “This study shows the power of discovery research which allows us to dig deep into the biology of mesothelioma to uncover vulnerabilities that we can now target with ADI-PEG20.”

Liz Darlison, chief executive of the charity Mesothelioma UK, added: “The UK mesothelioma community, including doctors, nurses, patients and families living with mesothelioma, are extremely proud of ATOMiC.

“It offers another much needed treatment option and, above all, hope to those living with mesothelioma.

“We look forward to seeing this treatment become available as a standard option to all patients in the future.

“Well done to all concerned and thank you to everyone who took part.”