A Maltese doctor headed a team of British researchers who made a dramatic breakthrough in the fight against prostate cancer.
Johann de Bono, the lead researcher of drug tests that began at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, has made the headlines after trials on a new pill have shown it can shrink tumours in up to 80 per cent of cases.
The new drug, abiraterone, could allow thousands of men to work and travel as before and potentially save lives, The Guardian reported.
Although the drug is still being tested and not yet on the market, trial tests are encouraging. Put in Dr de Bono's words, in an interview with Reuters, "we believe this drug will make a difference".
Described as a "wonder drug", it may end the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Experts hailed the advance as potentially the biggest in the sphere of prostate cancer for decades, capable of saving many thousands of lives. Scientists believe the technique could also be effective on other tumours, such as breast and bowel cancers, according to The Mail online.
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cancer killer of men after lung cancer. Each year, 680,000 men worldwide are diagnosed with the disease and about 220,000 die from it.
Abiraterone works by preventing the cancer from making its own hormones that allow the cancer cells to survive, Dr de Bono explained to Reuters.
So far, 250 men have been treated with the drug worldwide and a global trial of 1,200 is under way. All the volunteers in the first study had an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Some volunteers have been on the drug for up to two-and-a-half years and were able to control the disease with few side effects that included fatigue and weight gain, Reuters reported.
No firm conclusions can yet be drawn on whether the drug will significantly increase the lifespan of those with advanced prostate cancer as nobody has yet taken it for long enough, The Guardian said.
Dr De Bono played a part in discovering the drug at the Institute of Cancer Research, which is the academic arm of the Royal Marsden.
Abiraterone is now being developed by a US company called Cougar Biotechnology, which is funding the trials. Researchers are hoping that the drug will be on the market in 2011.