A drug approved for other types of cancer is showing unprecedented effectiveness in patients with thymus gland cancer.
Thymus cancer is rare and often aggressive, quickly spreading beyond the thymus gland, which is a small organ in the upper chest, under the breastbone.
In a new study, a Georgetown University team gave sunitinib, a targeted anti-cancer drug, to 24 patients in whom chemotherapy had failed to work. The drug is already approved for advanced kidney cancer, gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.
"Disease control was achieved in over 90 percent of patients tested," said Giuseppe Giaccone, M.D., the study’s lead investigator. "This represents a significant advance in the care of these patients. More than half of the 24 patients who participated had failed two or more prior treatments.”
The study's results, published in Lancet Oncology, are the first to demonstrate a robust response in thymus cancer patients who had failed chemotherapy, the standard treatment for this cancer, Dr. Giaccone said.
Investigators also tested sunitinib in 16 patients with thymoma, a less aggressive cancer in the same organ, but the agent doesn't seem show effectiveness, the study found.
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