Health in the News
Tumor-shrinking drug in trials
The first phase of human trials has begun for a new drug that halts tumor growth.
Not just one kind of tumor. Every kind of tumor.
The drug, berzosertib, stops cancer cells from repairing themselves and continuing to grow inside the body. It blocks a protein involved in DNA repair in tumor cells, but not in healthy cells. It doesn't destroy the cells. You still need chemotherapy for that.
In a trial run by the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, more than half of the 40 patients who got the drug had the growth of their tumors halted.
One patient with advanced bowel cancer found that the tumors completely disappeared after berzosertib. He remained cancer-free for two years.
Another patient with ovarian cancer had tumors shrink after combining chemotherapy with the drug.
The Phase 1 trial tests the safety of the drug and includes patients with very advanced tumors for whom no other treatment worked. Phase 1 drugs usually do not show a clinical response, as berzosertib appears to have done.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.