BY ELAINE MARDIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 09/23/19 03:30 PM EDT 151
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
Chances are, you know someone who has survived cancer.
Advances in cancer detection and treatment have helped swell the ranks of American cancer survivors to more than 16.9 million.
Some of these survivors shared their stories in the "AACR Cancer Progress Report 2019," released by the American Association for Cancer Research. Thanks to new treatment options developed through basic, translational, and clinical research, patients are leading fuller, more active lives for years or even decades after receiving a cancer diagnosis.
By some measures, this was a thrilling year of accomplishments for the cancer field. From Aug. 1, 2018, to July 31, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 27 cancer treatments. This is the highest number ever reported in the nine editions of the annual Cancer Progress Report.
One of the most exciting new treatments is larotrectinib (Vitrakvi), approved for use in pediatric and adult patients whose tumors test positive for an NTRK gene fusion, regardless of where in the body the tumor is located.
Such “tissue-agnostic” treatments, already changing practices and saving lives, will undoubtedly provide fertile ground for the next wave of cancer research and drug discovery. This approval also validates new clinical trial paradigms that provide registration data for FDA approvals in multiple tissue sites.
Also in the past year, the FDA approved the immunotherapy drug atezolizumab (Tecentriq) for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer. This subtype of breast cancer got its name because it lacks three things — the receptors for the hormones estrogen and progesterone and the protein HER2 — that drive other breast cancer subtypes.
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