If you’ve ever used a medication to treat an illness, you have a
clinical trial to thank for it.
Every standard therapy used in medicine today once started as a
clinical trial — and it is commonly understood that today’s trials are shaping
treatments of the future.
Less understood is the fact that clinical trials are helping patients right now.
From
pancreatic cancer patients whose lives are extended far beyond current expectations, to
patients with
metastatic cancer who are taking back control of their lives, clinical trials are providing
people in our community today with hope, help and healing.
As a physician involved in various clinical trials at
Hoag Family Cancer Institute, I am witnessing a remarkable evolution in medicine. Myself and my colleagues
are using immunotherapy to “reprogram” patients’ immune
systems to fight cancer on their own. We are injecting
chemotherapy directly into tumors to shrink cancer while minimizing risk to a patient’s
healthy tissue, and we are using state-of-the-art genomic testing of tumors
to develop more targeted and effective treatments.
Already, we are seeing impressive results, as clinical trials being conducted
right here in Newport Beach are leading to safer, more effective and longer-lasting
cancer treatments.
There is a persistent misconception that early phase clinical trials simply
collect safety data and don’t actually help patients, but that isn’t
the case at all.
Clinical trials have advanced to the point that the early phase trials
are now leading directly to U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved
treatments. At Hoag, we won’t engage in trials unless we believe
they have the potential to immediately help our patients.
They also are designed to be safer than in the past. Any drug that makes
it to a human clinical trial has already been through years of laboratory
studies. Millions of dollars of research and countless hours of work have
gone into making the treatment safe for humans.
That is part of the reason why today’s clinical trials lead to FDA
approval much faster than trials of the past. By offering targeted and
better-designed drugs, we can see a “home run” in a much earlier
phase of a clinical trial.
We saw exactly this type of success late last year, when the FDA granted
accelerated approval of larotrectinib — a treatment for cancers
that have a specific genomic feature. In trials, the drug had a 75% overall
response rate across different types of solid tumors. Some of the cancers
treated by larotrectinib include
soft tissue sarcoma, salivary gland cancer, infantile fibrosarcoma,
thyroid cancer and
lung cancer.
Patients benefited from these trials, and they are continuing to benefit.
Deborah McCartney, whose Stage 4 lung cancer had aggressively spread to her brain, lungs
and lymph nodes, told us she entered a clinical trial offering an experimental
drug at Hoag because she wanted access to the most modern medicine possible.
Deborah echoed what we firmly believe: Standard treatments we offer today
are not good enough — how can they be? We know that “tried
and true” works, but the level of pain patients experience on the
road to recovery, the recurrence rates and deaths tell us that we are
not done striving.
When she entered the clinical trial, Deborah discovered a layered and rigorous
process led by a thoughtful, experienced and specialized team. Oversight
and safety inform everything we do. Our team includes a clinical research
director, program manager, clinical research nurses and clinical research
coordinators. We are adding new trials and growing our program continuously.
Historically, the only treatment options for cancer were surgery,
radiation and chemotherapy — your all-purpose cancer poison. Thanks to clinical
trials, we are now entering an era that is more focused and sophisticated.
In the coming years, precision medicine, immunotherapy and injectable therapies
will take over where standard treatments have left off. We will have a
tighter grip on cancer, a smarter approach to treatment and better, longer-lasting results.
And you’ll have clinical trials to thank for it.
Dr. Jacob Thomas is a medical oncologist at Hoag Hospital with special training in early
phase clinical trials.
To view the original
Daily Pilot article, please click
here.
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