In what is being heralded as groundbreaking news for those suffering with malignant mesothelioma, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given its approval of a new treatment called the NovoTTF-100L System specifically for the treatment of the rare and deadly form of cancer: it’s the first such approval to be granted for a mesothelioma protocol in fifteen years.
New FDA-Approved Treatment Uses Electrical Fields to Disrupt Tumor Growth
NovoTTF-100L System is made by Novocure, a United Kingdom company, and it is administered to pleural mesothelioma patients in combination with the currently available combination of pemetrexed plus platinum-based chemotherapy. It is meant to provide treatment to patients whose locally advanced or metastatic disease has been identified as unresectable. The treatment is non-invasive, ad works by delivering Tumor Treating Fields that use electric field set to very specific frequencies that interrupt the division of cancerous tumor’s cell division.
Approval Will Bring New Hope to Those With Unresectable Pleural Mesothelioma
Not only is this the first FDA approval for mesothelioma patients in fifteen years, it is the first FDA-approval for torso cancer treatment that the company has received. The approval follows highly positive results from the Phase III STELLAR Trial, which showed that the system was extremely successful, delivering a median overall survival of 18.2 months when combined with the previously approved chemotherapy treatment for mesothelioma patients. According to Mary Hesdorffer, executive director of the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, “MPM is a devastating disease, with only 10 to 20% of patients being candidates for surgery to remove the tumor. Typically, mesothelioma patients who cannot have surgery receive palliative care to mitigate their symptoms. NovoTTF-100L provides unresectable MPM patients with a treatment option that may improve survival. We are encouraged by the FDA approval and hope it is just the beginning of innovation in the treatment of this aggressive disease.”
If you have been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, news of this approval may have a direct effect on your treatment. For more information, contact the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net at 1-800-692-8608.
