AsianScientist (Jan. 11, 2019) – Chinese biotech company Zai Lab has launched Optune—a cancer therapy that uses electric fields to disrupt tumor cell activity and induce cancer cell death—for the treatment glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) in Hong Kong.
In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that tumor treating fields therapy such as Optune slows and reverses tumor growth by creating low intensity, alternating electric fields within a tumor that exert physical forces on electrically charged cellular components. By disrupting intracellular signaling, cancer cells cannot undergo cell division properly and eventually die.
Optune is the second approved therapy after temozolomide (TMZ), which until now was the only therapeutic approved in China for the treatment of newly-diagnosed GBM. In a pivotal trial that was the basis for regulatory approvals, treatment with Optune in combination with TMZ more than doubled the five-year overall survival rate of GBM patients as compared to those receiving TMZ alone.
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Source: Zai Lab; Photo: Shutterstock.
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