(ORDO NEWS) — The FDA has approved the use of the newest drug Cytalux, which makes tumor cells visible.
Such a dye will allow for more precise operations for the treatment of lung cancer: doctors will be able to remove diseased tissues completely, causing minimal damage to healthy ones.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Cytalux dye for use in operations on patients with lung cancer.
The drug selectively binds to tumor cells and glows under an infrared lamp. This will allow surgeons to act more precisely, more completely removing tumor tissues and not affecting healthy ones.
Lung cancer is one of the most dangerous cancers. Often it can only be diagnosed in the later stages, when the tumor has already spread too widely.
Because of this, they are trying to use artificial intelligence, and even dogs with their supersensitive sense of smell , to detect lung cancer .
In about one in five cases of the disease, the tumor remains sufficiently localized, which allows resorting to surgical intervention.
The success of such operations largely depends on the accuracy with which doctors manage to remove malignant tissue.
If some of them remain in place, the tumor may grow again, requiring new treatment, and often a new surgical intervention.
To address this problem, On Target Laboratories developed the drug pafoalacyanin (brand name Cytalux). It is administered to the patient before surgery and binds to the folic acid receptor alpha (FRα).
Cancer cells produce these proteins especially actively, so they serve as targets for many types of anticancer therapies.
Pafoalacyanin is also guided by them. It does not have a therapeutic effect: this substance is a pigment that binds to FRα molecules and glows under the action of infrared radiation.
Its glow can be fixed with a simple IR camera, displaying the image on a monitor in the operating room. Cancer cells in this picture glow brightly, unlike normal cells, which have too little dye associated with them.
Focusing on it, surgeons remove areas of the tumor that they might otherwise miss, and at the same time do not affect tissue that is worth saving.
Last year, Cytalux received approval for use in ovarian cancer surgery. At the same time, the third phase of clinical trials of the drug in lung cancer surgery was carried out.
It has been shown to improve the efficiency of surgeries for more than 50 percent of patients. Final test results were released in May 2022, and Cytalux has now received final approval from the FDA.
The Agency remains the world‘s most authoritative organization that controls the use of medicines.
There is no doubt that, following the American department, the drug will be considered by regulators in other countries.
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