A NEW IMMUNE THERAPY BASED CANCER DRUG APPROVED :

A new drug , which is first amongst a new class of drugs being tried out for cancer treatment - has received an approval from US Food and drug administration (FDA). 

During trials, this drug has been found to be especially effective for patients suffering from an advanced melanoma (skin cancer) and have exhausted other therapies. 

The drug uses a new strategy to fight tumors by unleashing the body's own immune system to fight cancerous tumors, unlike the present protocol of using cytotoxic chemotherapy. 

The drug has been developed by Merck and shall be sold under the brand name "Keytruda", generically known as pembrolizumab and would be an expensive treatment costing about $12500 a month or about $150000 a year.

Scientists have always been struggling to find out how cancerous tumor cells are able to remain undetected from the body's immune system. The answer is that tumors activate brakes on the immune system, preventing it from attacking them. Keytruda is the first such drug approved that inhibits the action of one of those brakes a protein known as PD-1 or programmed death receptor - 1.

This general approach can also work for many other kinds of cancer though main success has been observed against skin, lung and kidney cancer in clinical trials.  

To know more about the latest update on this treatment protocol and treating centers offering the same as well as for getting your reports reviewed, post a query