FDA Approves New Drug to Treat Bladder Cancer
A new drug to treat bladder cancer was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week. It is the fourth drug on the market that reduce or kills tumors by turning the immune system against cancer cells.
Bladder cancer occurs mainly in older people. About 9 out of 10 people with this cancer are over the age of 55.
The average age at the time of diagnosis is 73. About 76,960 new cases of bladder cancer cases are to take place in US in 2016.
Tecentriq targets the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, which are proteins discovered on the body's immune cells and some cancer cells. The blockage brought by Tecentriq assist the body's immune system to fight cancer cells.
Tecentriq got an accelerated approval Wednesday from the Food and Drug Administration for treating patients with advanced urothelial cancer after chemotherapy stops helping them - a point when most normally die within about six months.
The tests on which Tecentriq's approval are based included 310 people with advanced urothelial cancer, which occurs in the bladder and sometimes in the ureter, urethra and pelvis.
"Even though bladder cancer is the fifth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, it hasn't received the same attention within the cancer community as other common cancers," Diane Zipursky Quale, president of the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, said in a press release. "TECENTRIQ is a new medicine for people whose locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer has progressed on platinum-based chemotherapy and may have limited treatment options."
