THOUSANDS of head and neck cancer patients may be saved from the disease after Melbourne researchers unlocked the secret to its development for the first time — and drugs capable of stopping it.
In what is being hailed as the biggest breakthroughs in the treatment of one of the most deadly forms of cancer for 50 years, scientists have identified a new gene that is critical for the growth squamous cell cancers of the head and neck.
Even more significantly, the discovery has revealed drugs that already exist, but which had never previously been linked to the disease, can be adapted to fight the cancers in the 3100 Australians diagnosed each year.
The Monash University Central Clinical School at the Alfred Hospital researchers have already begun testing the drugs on the head and neck squamous cell cancers for the first time, with stunning results.
“We have some spectacular results already — it is black and white to this point,” Research leader Prof Stephen Jane said.
“We think this is going too fast track the process because we see cancers being treated elsewhere with drugs that are already approved, so we don’t need to go through the approval process or even the development of cancer drugs.
“There are drugs that are potentially available for now for all the different subsets we have identified. We could now really personalise a therapeutic approach depending on a person’s tissue.”
While trials of the drugs are continuing further information cannot yet be revealed, Prof Jane said they had opened the door to personalised treatments which appear capable of being adapted for almost all patients diagnosed with the squamous cell cancers of the head and neck.
Each year 3100 Australians are diagnosed with SCC cancers in their head or neck, and 1000 die from the disease.
If discovered early patients have a three in four chance of surviving beyond five years however, if detected late their chances of survival are less than one in six.
The breakthrough came after the Monash team identified a gene which, when deleted, causes a series of changes to the cells in the mouth and oral cavity that induces rapid cell growth, the hallmark of cancer.
Publishing the results in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Prof Jane said the same genetic changes are not responsible for other forms of squamous cell cancers.
With smoking, drinking alcohol, human papilloma virus and other factors have able to trigger the head and neck cancer, the diversity of causes has previously left scientist unable to explain why it developed or how to treat it.
“We really haven’t understood the diversity of the cancer and that has hampered treatment. We have just had to give everybody the same — surgery when they relapse, we try chemo or radiation — but there really hasn’t been much improving in survival in 50 years,” Prof Jane said.
“It is a pretty devastating cancer. People have their tongues cut out, their voice boxes removed, they have tracheotomies — it is a horrible cancer to get.
“The identification of this gene all allows us to pigeon hole the cancers into different groups, and that allows us to not only to give predictions on the behaviour of the tumour, but also on the specific therapy is that might work in this cancer, but not another.”