The efforts of researchers to increase the speed of cancer drug testing have resulted in a new type of breast cancer treatment. According to an article in The New Jersey Herald, researchers in San Antonio reported the results of using the I-SPY 2 study, which is meant to get helpful drugs past the testing phase as soon as possible.
The usual course of clinical testing for a new cancer drug entails treatment of thousands of patients and can potentially last for a decade, at a cost which sometimes can exceed a billion dollars. However, the I-SPY 2 study quickly puts a small group of patients on an experimental cancer drug and performs surgery on them to see the effect of the therapy. When a drug is calculated to have a high probability of success, it moves forward to the final phase of clinical testing more rapidly.
The breast cancer drug known as veliparib is the first of seven drugs undergoing I-SPY 2 testing. After just six months of testing and 71 female patients being studied, researchers were able to show the drug’s degree of success and the best way to implement treatment. Research found that by combining the medication with the chemotherapy drug carboplatin, outcomes were improved for women with difficult-to-treat “triple negative” breast cancer.
While researchers are continuing to prove the effectiveness of this new type of treatment, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials have stated that some drugs can receive conditional approval based on I-SPY 2 testing protocol.Contact Us
There are many types of cancers that need more effective medications to prevent progression of or cure the disease. When these medications are in their development stage, less time in the testing, and earlier availability to cancer patients means more people may have a chance at a better prognosis. However, any treatment, whether with a new drug or with established modes of cancer therapy, still rests on the timely correct diagnosis of the disease by a healthcare professional.
If you or a loved one has suffered a cancer misdiagnosis or a failure to timely diagnose, you may have been seriously harmed. To learn more about your legal rights and how you may be able to gain compensation for your losses, call the New Jersey failure to diagnose cancer lawyers at Blume Forte at 973-845-4421 and receive a no-cost consultation.