“Today marks a beacon of hope,” commented David Begg, chairman of Mater Hospital, during the initiation of a scheme that holds potential to avail pioneering medical treatments for cancer to patients, years earlier than normally expected.
Templeogue resident Miriam Staunton received her diagnosis of stage three melanoma in 2018, which advanced to stage four in the subsequent year. She emphasises the significance of clinical trials offering access to the newest therapies, to her. “Although I wasn’t part of a clinical trial, I’ve benefited from treatments that were introduced in the past six to seven years. At present, I’m stable, but I’ve undergone the final line of treatment. Thus, I’m eager to see what lies ahead,” she expressed.
Multiple myeloma was the diagnosis made for Jed Van De Poll from Howth in March 2022. He is benefiting from a trial of a novel therapy. “I am the first patient, patient 001, in what’s referred to as the RVD ISA trial,” he confirmed. He explained the trial as exploring a monoclonal antibody, narrating it as a “highly advanced technique leveraging my personal immune system to combat the [cancer] cells.”
The recently launched Start Dublin unit at Mater Hospital will present opportunities for patients with advanced cancer to engage in magnified research utilising novel medicines. Start Dublin is the result of the combined efforts of Mater, UCD and the Start Center for Cancer Research in San Antonio, USA.
Austin Duffy, consultant oncologist and the research director and principal investigator at Start Dublin, mentioned that annually, approximately 30,000 individuals receive a cancer diagnosis. “With this early-phase oncology clinical trials unit in Dublin, we anticipate providing patients with access to innovative and hopeful drugs years before their possible actual availability.”
Dr Duffy further explains a clinical trial as an instance where patients receive a drug which is not entirely approved. “It has yet to pass the complete stages of development.”
For a medication to reach its destination and then receive the necessary regulatory clearances to be recommended by cancer specialists as a standard treatment, it must undertake a significant journey. This is where the medication is administered to patients for the first time, initiating its path. Indeed, there is a level of uncertainty involved. However, the thrilling aspect of this process is that it is absolutely at the cutting edge of science. This is the most recent, the most updated, the most current. It represents the pinnacle of what present science can deliver. In contrast, conducting a later stage, a phase three trial, involves a drug that has been around perhaps for around a decade.
Therefore, it’s much more groundbreaking, and the essential benefit from the patient’s perspective is its novelty. Patients are receiving what we believe is the most superior. Furthermore, the trials at this stage are usually not as restrictive concerning eligibility hence more welcoming to those who have undergone several treatments before. They are also more accepting of patients with less common forms of cancer. Plus, the key benefit is that no placebo is involved.
As explained, it would not cost patients anything to participate, nor is health insurance necessary. The inaugural trial at the new establishment will focus on an ovarian cancer drug already approved in the United States but yet to be introduced in Ireland or other European countries. “With our first study, which is examining one specific aspect of that drug, every female patient with ovarian cancer will gain access,” confirmed Dr Duffy.