New Drug Combination Invented for Blood Cancer Patients
University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center comes with new relief for blood cancer patients with its new research. The researchers have found a combination of three drugs that can be used for treating blood cancer multiple myeloma. The drug can prove a boon for the new patients diagnosed with blood cancer particularly with multiple myeloma which increases plasma cells in blood.
The mixture drug contains carfilzomib which is a proteasome inhibitor, lenalidomide and a small trace of dexamethasone. The drug has been applied for treating front line patients with myeloma. Myeloma is a type of cancer due to which plasma cells increase in blood.
The researcher, Andrzej Jakubowiak said that no neurotoxicity was found with the drug combination and its effects were positive on blood cancer patients. Jakubowiak is working in Comprehensive Cancer Center in the University of Michigan.
The research is based on an observation of 31 patients who were given the above mentioned drug combination. Surprisingly all the patients responded well to the treatment and showed approximately 50% and above reduction in cancer cells. Few patients were even completely cured.
The patients suffering from blood cancer responded to the drug combination so positively. Moreover the gradual improvement in their health condition with additional doses continued. Patients, who were given a total of 8 cycle of the treatment proved to attain 100% improvement in condition with no sign of cancer at the end of then treatment. The medicine therapy is expected to be proved as a better option than what is currently used to treat cancer patients diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
When the observation period was finished following total 8 doses of the combo drug all the patients had no growth of cancer cells in their bodies. This is also good to know that this combination treatment has least side effects and no serious negative impact at all.
Among all the prevalent treatments applied patients having the new combo drug doses had least signs of peripheral neuropathy – i.e. tingling of fingers and toes. This is a very important fact to be considered as many patients of multiple myeloma discontinue their treatment due to peripheral neuropathy.
Carfilzomib has already been applied on cancer patients specifically those with multiple myeloma. However the recent trial was to combine it with lenalidomide and low dose dexamethasone on patients with same problem and the results have come out overwhelmingly positive.
According to statistical predictions made by the American Cancer Society, around 20000 patients are diagnosed with problem of myeloma in the United States every year and out of them more than 10000 succumb to death.
One of the researchers at U-M Medical School supported the new combination drug as most sensitive treatment of multiple myeloma since the blood cancer patients can retain the treatment for longer duration with this drug. Subsequently they will get more chances of survival.
The result of this application of the drug combination over patients and analysis of their response and conclusion derived from the ultimate condition were revealed in a presentation at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.
