A new standard for returning womb cancer: a guided drug cuts progression risk by 41% and death risk by 32%

Endometrial cancer — cancer of the lining of the womb — is the most common cancer of the female reproductive system, and it is becoming deadlier. For women whose cancer returns after chemotherapy and immunotherapy, there has until now been no standard next treatment. In the global Phase 3 TroFuse-005 trial, led by researchers at NYU Langone Health and published in The Lancet, 776 women who had already received both treatments were given either sacituzumab tirumotecan (sac-TMT) — a 'guided' medicine that locks onto a marker called Trop-2 on tumour cells and delivers its cancer-killing payload straight to them — or standard chemotherapy. Women on the guided drug had a 41% lower risk of their cancer growing or spreading and a 32% lower risk of death. Tumours shrank in 35.1% of them, more than double the 17.3% on chemotherapy, and the side effects — mainly low blood counts, inflammation in the mouth and dry or itchy eyes — were manageable. The trial ran at more than 200 cancer centres in 29 countries. 'These positive results establish this drug as a new standard treatment in recurrent endometrial cancer,' said principal investigator Dr Bhavana Pothuri.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation