New and experimental drugs are extending the
lives of people with the deadliest forms of cancer. At the University
of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora, Dr. Ross Camidge leads clinical
trials for lung cancer, which kills more people each year than breast
cancer, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer combined. Camidge
calls them “niche-busters”, targeted therapies that dig deep into the
profiles of each individual cancer. Researchers have discovered that
just as individual patients have different genetic make-ups, so do their
tumors. The revolution in the past decade has been in diagnosing and treating cancer at the molecular level, says Camidge.
“It’s not one miracle drug,” says Camidge. “It’s lots of different miracles for lots of different cancers.” The clinical trial uses a combination of
dabrafenib and trametinib. British pharmaceutical company
GlaxoSmithKline won licenses for the two drugs in 2013 to treat melanoma
for patients who exhibited a mutation in a gene called BRAF.
The
mutation is common in melanoma but rare among patients with lung
cancer. There are only around 4,000 people nationwide who have
the mutation. Fewer than three dozen people around the country are
enrolled in a trial to see if the drugs can also slow tumor growth in
lung cancer as they do for melanoma.The University of Colorado Hospital is among the top-ranked cancer
treatment centers in the nation, according to U.S. News and World
Report. Outcomes for its cancer patients routinely top state and
national rates. The Cancer Center is one of 68 institutions given a
special designation by the National Cancer Institute to conduct cancer
research, the only such facility in the state.
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