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LONDON, 9 March (PTI) – Researchers at two UK universities have developed a new drug that could save the lives of children and young people with primary bone cancer and reduce disability from surgery.
Cancers that start in the bones, rather than those that have spread to the bones, mostly affect children and young adults. Current treatments are brutal, with outdated chemotherapy cocktails and amputations of limbs that result in lifelong disabilities.
Even after these grueling treatments, the five-year survival rate remains low at 42 percent — largely because the bone cancer spreads so quickly to the lungs. These ratios have not changed in nearly half a century.
But a new study published in the journal Bone Oncology shows how a new drug called “CADD522” blocks a gene associated with driving the cancer’s spread in mice implanted with human bone cancer.
The new drug increased survival rates by 50 percent without surgery or chemotherapy. And unlike chemotherapy, it does not cause toxic side effects such as hair loss, fatigue and disease.
“Primary bone cancer, although rare, most commonly occurs in children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 20, usually during a growth spurt. It is a difficult cancer to treat because it can spread very rapidly to the Other sites – especially the lungs,” said study co-author Professor Alison Gatland from the University of Sheffield.
The children had to undergo very harmful treatments that had very unpleasant, sometimes lifelong side effects, sometimes leading to amputations, Galtland said.
This, combined with the low survival rate, is why the drug is so important and could have a huge impact on patients and their families, the researchers say.
“This breakthrough was only possible through extensive collaboration between the teams at the University of Sheffield and the University of East Anglia, and I sincerely hope that with further research and support, this drug can be used in clinical trials in the near future,” Gartland said.
The researchers collected bone and tumor samples from 19 patients at the Royal Orthopedic Hospital in Birmingham. However, this small number was enough to detect some noticeable changes in cancer.
The team used next-generation sequencing to identify different types of genetic regulators called small RNAs in bone cancer progression. They also showed that a gene called RUNX2 is activated in primary bone cancers and that the gene is involved in driving cancer spread.
They went on to develop CADD522, a small molecule that blocks the RUNX2 protein from doing its job, and tested it in mice.
“In high school, my best friend Ben Molly developed primary bone cancer. His illness inspired me to do something about myself because in my research I realized that this cancer was progressing in research and treatment lagged behind almost other cancers in terms of cancer,” lead researcher Dr Darrell Green, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said.
“I want to understand the underlying biology of cancer spread so we can intervene at the clinical level and develop new treatments so patients don’t have to go through what my friend Ben went through.
“Ultimately, we want to save lives and reduce disability from surgery. Now we’ve developed a new drug that promises to do just that,” he said.
The new drug is currently undergoing a formal toxicology review before the team gathers all the data and contacts the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for approval to begin human clinical trials.
The research was led by UEA, in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield, Newcastle, the Royal Orthopedic Hospital in Birmingham and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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