Cancer Wonder Drug is Hailed

A POTENTIAL wonder drug that may be able to tackle many different cancers has passed its first clinical test, researchers have said.

Preliminary results from an early patient trial indicate that the drug is hitting its targets.

Scientists hope the drug, known as 17AAG, can be used to attack cancer cells on numerous fronts.

It raises the possibility for the first time of fighting a multitude of cancers with a single drug treatment.

If further trials live up to expectations, 17AAG could be used against breast, prostate, bowel, kidney, ovarian and skin cancer, as well as others.

The drug works by knocking out a so-called ‘chaperone’ molecule which is essential for cancer cells to thrive. Without it, they stop growing and die.

The phase one trial involved 30 patients with a range of cancers and was only designed to confirm that the drug worked at a biochemical level.

However, during the course of the trial, two patients with skin cancer that had not responded to other drugs saw their conditions stabilise.

Study leader Professor Paul Workman, from the Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics in London, said: ‘The drug has the potential to attack cancer by shutting down a range of systems that cancer cells use to grow and spread.’

The study,which was funded by Cancer Research UK, was carried out at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, and reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology yesterday