New drug approved to treat cancer after Hackensack physician leads study
Saturday, July 6, 2013 Last updated: Saturday July 6, 2013, 11:50 AM
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
A new drug has been approved to battle mantle cell lymphoma, an aggressive cancer often fatal because of its resistance to treatment, after a study led by a Hackensack University Medical Center physician showed it can stop the progression of the disease in about a quarter of the patients.
Revlimid, a drug taken orally, was granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration last month after a study led by Dr. Andre Goy involving 134 patients showed 26 percent of patients responded to the medication. Nine patients showed a complete remission by the end of the clinical trial, according to the FDA.
Before the study, all of the patients had been treated with chemotherapy and their disease had either never regressed or had returned, Goy said.
“Patients were heavily pretreated and were a poor risk,” Goy said. “That’s why this is so important. Many of these patients had few other options.”