article_snippet: A revolutionary drug, called ibrutinib, that ‘switches off’ cancer may soon be offered to patients with some forms of whose disease.
article_snippet: A revolutionary drug that ‘switches off’ cancer may soon be offered to patients with some forms of whose disease.
article_snippet: If prescribed, the once-a-day tablet, called ibrutinib, could spare blood cancer patients the sometimes agonising side effects of traditional chemotherapy.
article_snippet: Professor Stephen Devereux, consultant haematologist at King’s College Hospital in London, says it is a new class of targeted medications, known as a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor.
article_snippet: it works by targeting and switching off a protein in the cancer cells.
article_snippet: Chemotherapy kills cancer cells but it also kills normal cells and therefore has lots of side effects,’ Chemotherapy says.
article_snippet: As A revolutionary drug that ‘switches off’ cancer is targeted at the B-cells, the side effects are minor.
article_snippet: In addition, patients don’t have to go into hospital to have A revolutionary drug that ‘switches off’ cancer administered.
article_snippet: But trials using the drug as a first-line treatment are also taking place.
article_snippet: Prof Devereux says: ‘We’re looking forward to a chemotherapy-free future, although We’re not there quite yet.
article_snippet: ‘the drug takes on an aggressive disease and makes the drug benign.
article_snippet: the drug’s not a cure –
article_snippet: If prescribed, the once-a-day tablet could spare blood cancer patients the sometimes agonising side effects of traditional chemotherapy.