PMCC Clinical Trials That Have Changed Worldwide PracticesYou can see the challenges, when you read what these UHN breakthroughs below just added in terms of survivability;
So imagine the GIANT leap TLT would bring, if successful in the GBM or lung cancer indications, when reading all it took to acheive these!!!
BRAIN CANCER: Clinical Trials That Have Changed Practice at The Princess Margaret and Beyond - Brain Cancer Glioblastoma is a malignant brain cancer with no cure. Half of glioblastoma patients are 65 or older. An international study led by Princess Margaret Cancer Centre seems to have found a way to extend survival in older patients.
The six-year trial treated patients with a chemotherapy drug, combined with a short course of radiation therapy. Older patients traditionally get treated with radiation alone. The result was that survival increased by an average of two months, compared to those treated with radiation alone. And for 45% of the study participants, survival time almost doubled – from 7 months to 13.5 months.
Dr. Normand Laperriere, Radiation Oncologist, @UHN, is a Co-Principal Investigator on this trial. He says the results were a long-awaited success.
“This tumour has a long tradition of being a graveyard for innovative remedies. I had reached the point in my career where I didn't think I'd ever have my name on a positive study of this disease. This is a wonderful feeling,” he says.
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LUNG CANCER: Same giant leap would be made, for the lung cancer indication, when reading the following:
Dr. Frances Shepherd has been a leading investigator in more than 100 clinical trials over the past three decades. Her studies have changed treatment and outcomes for lung cancer patients around the world.
During her 19-year tenure as Chair of the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group Lung Cancer Site, Dr. Shepherd developed and led the BR.10 trial. This groundbreaking clinical trial introduced adjuvant vinorelbine and cisplatin chemotherapy to patients who had already had their tumours completely removed.
With 482 patients, the trial demonstrated that the cost-effective treatment could improve the five-year survival rate by 15% and in patients with Stage 2 cancers involving the lymph glands by 20%. The results changed practice at a global level.
“This was absolutely huge. It was revolutionary,” says Dr. Shepherd. “No benefit of this magnitude had ever been seen previously in any of the other trials of post-operative chemotherapy.
“This is the trial that really convinced the world that adjuvant chemotherapy for lung cancer was worth it.”