“We are at a point where in the next few years we’re going to have a lot more options for our patients,” said Dr. Hedy Kindler in the most recent MesoTV episode discussing precision medicine and targeted therapies for mesothelioma. Dr. Kindler is a medical oncologist leading the Mesothelioma Program at the University of Chicago Medicine.
Treatment options for mesothelioma patients have historically been limited. For many years, patients had no standard of care to turn to. The Alimta/cisplatin combination treatment became the first approved treatment option in 2004. It would take another 16 years before the immunotherapy combination of nivolumab/ipilimumab (Opdivo/Yervoy) was approved in 2020. And now, a new promising approach to mesothelioma treatment called precision medicine is being tested in clinical trials.
Precision medicine targeting the biology of the tumor
In this episode of MesoTV, the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation’s on-staff mesothelioma expert Shannon Sinclair, RN, BSN, OCN, interviews Dr. Kindler on the topic of precision medicine for mesothelioma. They first tackle an overview precision medicine, the difference between germline and somatic mutations, and ways in which patients and their tumors can be tested for these mutations. Then, they focus on currently available clinical trials utilizing this novel approach.
The idea behind precision medicine is to target the biology of a patient’s cancer, and specifically certain mutations within the tumor, because “all of us are individuals, and our tumors are individual, too,” explains Dr. Kindler. “By being more precise about the biology of the tumor we can hopefully have a better chance of that treatment actually helping the patient.”
Targeted therapies in clinical trials
For mesothelioma patients, this means that new treatment options, better known as targeted therapies, are currently available in early phase clinical trial settings. The three drugs discussed in this episode are all administered orally (by pill). They include CPI-0209, an EZH2 inhibitor; olaparib (PARP inhibitor) targeting the BAP1 tumor mutation; and the VT3989 targeting the NF2 mutations. As Dr. Kindler explains, before drugs are approved commercially, they are identified by a combination of letters and numbers instead of names. At this early stage, they also may not include the name mesothelioma in their titles. Instead, they may be titled “evaluation of a drug xyz for patients with [a certain] mutation.”
The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation can help patients understand these trials and guide them through the selection. All of these are multi-center trials, which means patients have more options for getting access to these investigational medications, but if a patient is unable to enroll in a trial far from home due to cost issues, the Foundation can provide financial assistance through its Travel Grant Program.
“It’s a really exciting time to be a mesothelioma researcher, because we know that in the future, hopefully, we will have so many more options,” Dr. Kindler concluded.
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MesoTV is a program by the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation. This program is made possible by our generous sponsors: Belluck & Fox; Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, LLC (MRHFM); Bristol Myers Squibb; AstraZeneca, & TCR2.
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