Swiss scientists have developed a rapid assessment system called Therapy-Guided Multidrug Optimization that evaluates all possible combinations of the latest cancer drugs to deliver the maximum benefit, with no side-effects for a patient’s individual cancer.
As everybody knows, drugs are still given to the majority of cancer patients in a one-size-fits-all approach. In Colon cancer, it’s FOLFOX and FOLFIRI. Side-effects for some patients can be horrendous. 5-FU gained FDA approval in 1956.
Now scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) claim to have evented a system that evaluates combinations of the latest drugs resulting in individual tailored packages that are is considerably more effective than chemotherapy and have NO adverse side-effects!
“The technique we have developed and patented is called TGMO - phenotypically controlled, Therapy-Guided Multidrug Optimization,” says Professor Patrycja Nowak-Sliwinska, of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. “It allows us to perform tests and advanced statistical analysis on a patient’s cancerous and healthy cells quickly and in just a few steps.”
Using all the major new drugs available, the TMGO system allows scientists to evaluate all potential drug combinations looking for the best synergies against the cancer while rejecting all antagonists to the healthy cells.
Results are delivered in under two weeks and the system allows Doctors to minimise the effective dose.
In the research, the scientists used 12 of the latest drugs and patients with colon cancer.
First, scientists took cancer cells freshly harvested from patients in Switzerland and conducted in vitro tests on the cells and three-dimensional models of the tumours. Then they used in vivo tests in mouse models.
Healthy cells were also tested in the same way, using the same drug combinations.
All combinations proved to be more effective than current chemotherapy. The new combinations showed no adverse side-effects on the healthy cells harvested, or on the mice.
Tumour growth was reduced by about 80%, which is significantly more than current chemo achieves. And in all cases, the scientists claimed that the healthy cells were not affected.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist and a founder of CANCERactive said, “Even if you take the very latest drugs like Palbociclib or Olaparib, we know they can exhibit terrible side-effects in some patients. So, if scientists have found that the drugs still work in some patients on a much lower dose, that is to be applauded.
I don’t doubt that you can find combinations of newer drugs that will make the current use of chemotherapy look positively archaic. So, developing a system that evaluates which combinations work best in which patients is to be applauded. It also means that pharmaceutical companies that massaged the data on the drugs will see them fall away from favour, if this multi-drug assessment remains independently controlled.
Independent evaluation and lower doses? Is Big Pharma really likely to support TMGO?
It is also noteworthy that these independent scientists are saying that even the best combinations of the latest drugs don’t cure, and deliver a maximum of 80% decrease.”
Go to: Top oncologist gives thumbs down to new drugs