New Drug For Advanced Bladder Cancer Touted By The FDA As 'Breakthrough Therapy'

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug for metastatic bladder cancer. The treatment is the first major advancement for curing advanced bladder cancer in three decades.

Longer Lifespan For Bladder Cancer Patients

The drug Tecentriq, developed by the Roche Group's Genentech division, was approved by the FDA on Wednesday. Tecentriq prevents a protein called PD-L1, which was carried by tumor cells, from deactivating T-cells, an important component of a person's immune system that pursues and destroys cancer cells, the U.S. News & World Report wrote (via the Associated Press).

Tecentriq is used on patients with advanced bladder cancer who underwent fruitless bouts of chemotherapy. At this point, patients usually survive for only six months before succumbing to their disease. Dr. Daniel Chen, the head of development for cancer immunotherapy drugs at Genentech, said patients who were given Tecentriq survived for as long as three years after they began taking the drug.

The tests that served as the basis for Tecentriq's approval were conducted on 310 individuals with advanced urothelial cancer that targets a person's bladder, ureter, urethra and pelvis. According to the tests, patients who took Tecentriq had their tumors shrink by 15 percent. The drug shrunk PD-L1 protein in patients with high levels of them by 26 percent.

Less Extreme Side Effects

Chemotherapy sessions cause disabling nausea, fatigue, pain, mouth and throat sores, constipation, hair loss, appetite loss and blood issues, among others, Cancer.net listed. Long-term effects of chemotherapy include problems in concentration, thinking and memory retention, as well as permanent damage to vital organs like the heart, lung, liver, kidneys and the reproductive system.

Chen said Tecentriq allows patients to go back to work and experience a normal way of life after treatment, the Associated Press reported. Tecentriq is called atezolizumab in its chemical form and costs for $12,500 per month for patients without insurance.

According to the FDA, Tecentriq treatment commonly causes side effects like nausea, urinary tract infection, fatigue, loss of appetite, constipation and fever. Tecentriq's long-term side effects include damages to a person's healthy organs like the colon, lungs and endocrine system. Tecentriq shares the same side effects with chemotherapy, but the ones displayed by the drug are reportedly less severe than the latter, Chen noted.

Statistics And Causes

The National Cancer Institute found that there were more than 580,000 individuals with bladder cancer living in the U.S. in 2013. Smokers have higher chances of developing bladder cancer, as well as people who often have chronic bladder infections and who those have been exposed to certain chemicals. The most common symptom of bladder cancer is blood in the urine.