Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered a promising new triple-drug therapy for Ewing sarcoma, a cancer of the bone and soft tissue. This is good news, as survival rates have been stalled for nearly two decades, and remain dismal for patients whose disease has spread or reappeared after treatment.
In laboratory studies, many tumors treated with the triple-drug therapy disappeared and did not return. The therapy consisted of two drugs currently used to treat Ewing sarcoma, plus experimental drugs called PARP inhibitors that interfere with a cellular process called DNA repair. Clinical trials are now being planned to evaluate the therapy in patients.
The findings were published in the journal Cell Reports.
October 23, 2014