Skip to main content

New method to make lung cancer drug trials more successful

Australian researchers have developed a new method for finding participants in clinical trials of lung cancer drugs, it was announced on Wednesday.

Researchers from Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) were optimistic that the new recruitment process will boost the success rate of drugs being trialled as treatments for lung squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common type of lung cancer.

By mimicking the complexity of human tumours with a research tool, the scientists were able to identify a "biomarker" which could serve as an indication as to which patients would better respond to certain drugs, Xinhua news agency reported.

Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat, the lead author of the study, said patients with the biomarker were more likely to respond positively to fibroglast growth factor receptor (FGFR) drugs.

"We found that high levels of the anti-cancer drug's target, FGFR1, in a patient's tumour ribonucleic acid (RNA) were a better predictor of their potential response to the drug than the current tests that are used," Asselin-Labat said on Wednesday.

Ben Solomon, a medical oncologist from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, said the finding meant future clinical trials could be designed to succeed.

"Fewer than 10 per cent of new cancer drugs make it past phase 1 clinical trials. In many cases this isn't because of the drug itself, but because of a limitation in clinical trial design," Solomon said.

"Understanding which patients are most likely to respond to certain drugs in clinical trials is crucial both for patients to receive the best treatment, and for new drugs to make it to the clinic."

"Hopefully these data will help to improve trial outcomes by recruiting patients who otherwise might not have been matched to the right trial for them," Solomon said.

​Source​


ᐧ

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BE guidelines regarding investigator

BE guidelines recommend investigator should possess appropriate medical qualification, experience for conducting pharmacokinetic studies Can chairperson of EC directly write to sponsor to clarify some of the queries of clinical trial raised in EC meeting? Dr. Sreevatsa Please see an extract from FDA's comment on IRB-sponsor relationship. The interrelationship and interaction between the research sponsor (e.g., drug, biologic and device manufacturers), the clinical investigator and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) may be very complex. The regulations do not prohibit direct sponsor-IRB contacts, although, the sponsor-IRB interaction customarily occurs through the investigator who conducts the clinical study. The clinical investigator generally provides the communication link between the IRB and the sponsor. Such linkage is agreed to by the sponsors and investigators when they sign forms FDA-1571 and FDA-1572, respectively, for drug and biologic studies or a...
Post a Comment
Read more

ICH GCP requires EC members to be independent of investigator and sponsor to avoid conflicts of interest

Can an Ethics Committee member e.g. layman/chairman or anyone in the committee participate in the trial as a subject? Vidya If an Ethics Committee member becomes a trial subject on a trial that he/she was involved in approving then there has been a major conflict of interest. The following situations need to be considered: ● IEC member reviews study without any prior knowledge of the study, votes, and then afterwards is approached by clinical research team to participate. Possibly this is OK but the member should no longer be part of the IEC that reviews that study. This will be difficult in practice, so therefore it is not advisable. ● IEC member already knows about the study and is voting in order to be able to participate. This is clearly not acceptable and made worse if there is additional financial incentive for the study (e.g. volunteer study). ICH GCP requires Ethics Committee members to be independent of the investigator and the sponsor to avoid confl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Combination Vaccine for Kids withdrawn

A vaccine that combines conventional MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) with Chikenpox has been withdrawn in the United States due to a higher rate of seizures in children. In a study children aged 12 to 23 months who received the combined MMR cum Chickenpox vaccine had double the rate of seizures compared to children who got separate vaccine for MMR and chickenpox. This equates to one additional case of convulsion per 2000 vaccinations.
Post a Comment
Read more