A new marine antitumoral to care

It was one of the surprises of the largest oncology conference that is held every year in the U.S. in late May, but the drug of marine origin eribulin continues to confirm its usefulness in treating patients with breast cancer. A phase III trial with important Spanish participation demonstrates that the antitumor drug last see the light could come from the deep sea.

In fact, since last November, eribulin already authorized in the U.S. by the drug agency (FDA, according to its acronym in English). And the results just now to make known the British journal 'The Lancet' open the door a little more for their European counterpart (EMA) chooses the same decision. Thus become the second antitumor gestated in the sea that reaches patients after Yondelis (Spanish firm PharmaMar), which is already used for sarcomas and ovarian cancer.

New marine antitumoral

Eribulin (marketed by Eisai and Halav Japanese lab) is a compound synthesized from a body of the seas Nipponese, 'Halichondria okadai', whose antitumor properties were discovered in the mid-eighties. As explained the Dr. Javier Cortes, Institute of Oncology, Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona, and co-author, "is a new type of chemotherapy, on the one hand, prevents tumor cells continue dividing , while the other, form aggregates inside a [sort of lumps] toxic to malignant cells. "
Spanish participation

Embrace The study (funded by the drug's manufacturer in order to achieve its approval in Europe) has been conducted in 140 centers around the world with 762 women with breast cancer, about 50 of them from several Spanish hospitals. It was, explains Dr. Cortes of patients with very advanced tumors and metastases and who had relapsed despite receiving several lines of previous treatment.

"Faced with the classical treatment chosen by their oncologists," he explains, "eribulin improved survival by 20%." On average, this extension meant an additional two and half months of life, but as you add the Catalan specialist "should be borne in mind that in the last 10 years we have not seen any drug to improve survival in metastatic breast cancer."

Marine antitumoral to care the Cancer

Cortes also noted that despite being a chemotherapy was well tolerated eribulin ("just the hair falls out and only 10% of patients experienced fatigue"), which is administered in the hospital in "less than five minutes" appears to benefit all breast cancers equally regardless of their molecular profile.

However, not everything is rosy in the seabed. "Patients are still dying of breast cancer, not all trial participants benefited from eribulin and a still significant 7% suffered significant neurotoxicity from treatment," admits the Spanish oncologist.

Therefore, as pointed out in an editorial in the same journal Nacy Lin, Dana Farber Institute in Boston (USA), despite the progress that this represents, there are still unanswered questions. "What cancer subtypes benefit most and why improved overall survival over that time to relapse? What time to relapse should be considered futile treatment ?...". But we must wait for new tests to answer these questions new antitumoral to care the cancer.