BBC看到的防癌技術 - 抗癌

原文連結 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15039216
文章有點長(看不是很懂),但總之是防癌的新技術,放上來分享給大家~

A trial of a new cancer drug, which accurately targets tumours, has been so
successful it has been stopped early.

Doctors at London's Royal Marsden Hospital gave prostate cancer patients a
powerful alpha radiation drug and found that they lived longer, and
experienced less pain and side effects.

The medics then stopped the trial of 922 people, saying it was unethical not
to offer all of them the treatment.

Lead researcher Dr Chris Parker said it was "a significant step forward".

Cancer Research UK said it was a very important and promising discovery.

Radiation has been used to treat tumours for more than a century. It damages
the genetic code inside cancerous cells.

Alpha particles are the big, bulky, bruisers of the radiation world. It is a
barrage of helium nuclei, which are far bigger than beta radiation, a stream
of electrons, or gamma waves.

Dr Parker told the BBC: "It's more damaging. It takes one, two, three hits to
kill a cancer cell compared with thousands of hits for beta particles."

Alpha particles also do less damage to surrounding tissue. He added: "They
have such a tiny range, a few millionths of a metre. So we can be sure that
the damage is being done where it should be."

In 90% of patients with advanced prostate cancer, the tumour will have spread
to the bone. At this stage there are no treatments which affect survival.

The study looked at patients with these secondary cancers, as the source of
radiation - radium-223 chloride - acts like calcium and sticks to bone.

Half were given the radium-223 chloride drug alongside traditional
chemotherapy, while the other patients received chemotherapy and a dummy pill.

The death rate was 30% lower in the group taking radium-223. Those patients
survived for 14 months on average compared to 11 months in the dummy group.

The trial was abandoned as "it would have been unethical not to offer the
active treatment to those taking placebo", said Dr Parker.

He added: "I think it will be a significant step forward for cancer patients".

Researchers also said the treatment was safe. Curiously there were fewer
side-effects in the group taking the treatment than those taking the dummy
medicine.

The findings are being presented at the European Multidisciplinary Cancer
Congress but they have not yet been peer-reviewed by other academics.

Prof Gillies McKenna, Cancer Research UK's radiotherapy expert and director
of the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, said: "This appears
to be an important study using a highly targeted form of radiation to treat
prostate cancer that has spread to the bones.

"This research looks very promising and could be an important addition to
approaches available to treat secondary tumours - and should be investigated
further."

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