Reader\'s Digest Australia & New Zealand - June 2018

June• 2018 | 39

READER’S DIGEST

August 2017 to ight ac
lympho blastic leukemi
children and young ad
In a clinical trial, 83
cent of those receiving
T-cell therapy experie
remission within three months.
It’s also being used to treat certain
non-Hodgkins lymphoma patients.
Several other immunotherapy
drugs are currently being used
against cancer, sometimes with dra-
matic results. But most immuno-
therapies only work for a small
percentage of people. Usually, a
biopsy of the tumour is required to
ind out who’s a good candidate for
which therapy. But now, a new blood
test, called a liquid biopsy, is being
studied to determine whether, by
looking for DNA markers in an indi-
vidual’s blood, they can quickly and
easily determine which immuno-
therapy will help which patients.
Liquid biopsies might also be the
future of early detection of cancer,
according to an August 2017 paper
in Science Translational Medicine,
which reported their use to detect
genetic changes linked to early-stage
colorectal, breast, lung and ovarian
cancer, and may help detect cancer
recurrence.
One very diferent type of immu-
notherapy is a vaccine for lung cancer
called CIMAvax. It has signiicantly
increased survival times in patients
in Cuba, where it was developed,
and is now being tested in clinical

ls in the US. What makes

Avax unique is that unlike

st immunotherapies, which

only efective against very

cific cancer sub-types,

Avax suppresses a ‘growth

factor’ called EGF in the patient’s

body, and numerous diferent types

of cancers require EGF in order to

proliferate.

“he possibility is that this vaccine

would be useful in a large number

of cancers,” says Dr Kelvin Lee, pro-

fessor and chair of the immunolog y

department at Roswell Park Can-

cer Center. Among those are breast,

prostate, pancreatic, colon, and head

and neck cancers.

Bowel Cancer

Bowel cancer is the third most

common cancer in Australia and

second highest cause of cancer

death in New Zealand.

THE GOOD NEWS

Many more people are surviving

today.

HOW IT HAPPENED

More widespread and accurate

screening allows doctors to catch

it early.

Australia and New Zealand have

some of the highest rates of bowel

cancer in the world, but over the

last ten years, earlier detection has

resulted in a 20 per cent fall in the

overall mortality rate.

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