New Cancer 'Smart Bomb' Offers Less Toxic Treatment

A new, less toxic form of cancer drug is offering hope to patients. 

For a generation, chemotherapy drugs have had a dramatic impact on many patients, causing hair loss, loss of fingernails and other side effects. 

But now an experimental treatment, in which the drug Herceptin and a chemotherapy agent are attached to each other to neutralise the toxic part of the medicine is producing encouraging results. 

One woman, Fern Saitowitz, who has advanced breast cancer, switched to the new treatment and found the side effects much less distressing. Using the traditional treatment, Ms Saitowitz’ hair fell out, her fingernails turned black and she was constantly tired. With the new treatment, she only experienced mild nausea and muscle cramps.  

“I’m able to live a normal life,” said Ms. Saitowitz, 47, a mother of two young children in Los Angeles. “I haven’t lost any of my hair.”

The experimental treatment is called T-DM1 and is being heralded as the pioneer in a new form of cancer drug that may be more effective and less toxic at the same time. 

The drug uses antiodies to deliver a ‘toxic payload’ to cancer cells, but spares healthy cells. It’s being called a ‘magic bullet’ for the disease which kills millions each year. 

“It’s almost like we’re masking the chemotherapy,” said Dr. Edith Perez, a breast cancer specialist at the world famous Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. 

Another scientist compared the treatment to ‘smart bombs’ with the antibodies passing through the bloodstream but only sticking to cells with the right target on them. 

“These are like floating sea mines,” said K. Dane Wittrup, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at MIT the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But when they end up in a particular harbor, they blow up.” Dr Wittrup estimated that less than 1 percent of the drug actually makes it to the tumor.