Revolutionary drug trial by PeterMac giving lung cancer sufferers new hope
A revolutionary drug has just been tested on patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer, with the findings giving hope to sufferers. Here’s how it helped a Victorian mum.
Victoria
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People with lung cancer have been given hope following a major breakthrough involving Melbourne researchers.
A promising wonder drug, Lorlatinib, has just been tested in an international trial for patients newly diagnosed with ALK-positive Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.
The phase three trial — which included key teams at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre — found the drug not only improved the quality of life of patients when compared with the current standard of treatment, but extend their lifespan too.
Doctors are now hopeful it could become a first-line of treatment for all ALK-positive patients.
The drug works by inhibiting, or blocking, proteins in the cancer cells from growing.
And while sadly it is no cure, the promising new research could begin a new standard of “personalised medicine.”
The trial follows an announcement in August which saw Lorlatinib listed on the PBS for patients who had exhausted all other avenues of treatment.
“This trial was to see if instead of waiting for other treatments to stop working, to see how beneficial it would be to use it first-up,” Professor Ben Solomon, a medical oncologist at PeterMac, said.
“And the results were really strongly positive in favour of Lorlatinib — it controlled the disease.”
ALK-positive lung cancer is common in young people and those who have no or little history of smoking.
It can be aggressive, often causing tumours to grow throughout the body and brain, and until recently the long-term outcome for patients was grim.
But the new findings showed that after 12 months on the Lorlatinib trial, almost 80 per cent of patients were “doing well” and their cancer considered “controlled.”
This was compared with just 39 per cent of those on the current-standard drug, called crizotinib.
Even more remarkably, Lorlatinib caused 71 per cent of tumours in the brain to disappear completely.
“What makes me really excited about these drugs is that when I started in lung cancer, it would be really unusual to see someone that survived for more than a year,” Dr Solomon said.
“Now, with these drugs we’re seeing patients that are getting to three, four, five years or even longer.
“These drugs have really changed things for lung cancer patients and are allowing them to get on with living their lives.”
When Courtney Delecca, 35, was diagnosed with ALK-positive lung cancer in 2017 she didn’t think she would see her daughter’s second birthday.
The Bendigo mum had never smoked and the news came completely out of the blue.
But after joining the Lorlatinib trial, she has been enjoying time with her young family — including husband Jason — for almost three years now, without fear.
“It’s given me my life, it’s given my daughter her mum,” Ms Delecca said.
“She’s almost five now and will start school next year — how did that happen? I’m just so grateful to be able to see that [milestone].”
The young mum takes a daily Lorlatinib tablet, which will continue indefinitely, and has regular blood tests and scans but says she will be forever grateful for the time she has got back.
“It really is amazing,” she said.
About 300 patients from 23 countries took part in the study, with half given Lorlatinib and half crizotinib.
The findings were announced in the early hours of Sunday morning at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress 2020.
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