A novel approach to treating early-stage cancer, known as radioligand therapy (RLT), significantly reduces the risk of developing advanced neuroendocrine tumors and the associated death. This is the result of a study led by scientists at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto.
The results of the multicenter clinical trial, published in The Lancet magazine, provided the first evidence that RLT – when used in the early stages after a patient's diagnosis – slows the progression of aggressive grade 2 and 3 gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors.
The treatment was shown to extend the average “progression-free survival” time from about 8.5 months to 22.8 months.
“This is the first study to show the efficacy of RLT as a first-line treatment for advanced, incurable cancer, or any cancer,” said global study lead Simron Singh, a medical oncologist at Sunnybrook and an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “This study is groundbreaking not only for patients with neuroendocrine cancers but for all cancer patients, as it has implications for cancer treatment practice in general.”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00701-3/abstract
