Thanks to a range of new treatments, including cutting edge radiopharmaceuticals, cancer sufferers can look forward to prolonged periods of disease control and improved quality of life.
This is the message from an international expert on the management of cancer using radiopharmaceutical therapy, Professor Sandy McEwan, currently visiting Melbourne from the Department of Oncology at the University of Alberta. Professor McEwan said that radiopharmaceutical treatments are having a dramatic effect on quality of life and control of symptoms for people living with cancer.
Radiopharmaceuticals are drugs which have two components – a targeting molecule or "magic bullet" that seeks out cancer sites and a radioactive tracer or tag that delivers a dose of radiation to kill cancer cells targeted by the radiopharmaceutical.
"The use of radiopharmaceuticals means that cancer can be controlled with dramatic improvements in patients’ quality of life and possibly even an improvement in their rates of survival," Professor McEwan said.
"Radiopharmaceuticals have a chemical attraction to specific cancers. Research shows that they can be used safely on multiple occasions controlling symptoms and stabilising disease. This means that the emphasis is moving away from talk about managing people dying from cancer, to talk of people living with and managing their cancer," he said.
"The evidence is that bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals such as Quadramet can significantly reduce pain and analgesic requirements. They can improve quality of life and reduce lifetime radiotherapy requirements and management costs, and may slow the progression of painful lesions. Patients can be retreated safely and effectively on multiple occasions," he said.
Quadramet is a radiopharmaceutical made by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). One injection can provide pain relief for up to 16 weeks for patients with cancer that has spread to bone. The carrier
molecule in Quadramet is similar to the minerals taken up by the body to form or repair bone. It zeros in on sites where bone has been invaded by cancer and treats the cancer cells with low level localised radiation.
Quadramet is produced by ANSTO to treat people in the advanced stages of breast or prostate cancer who have developed secondary cancers in the bone. It has been listed in the Medicare Benefits Schedule book.
There are around 10,000 new cases of breast cancer and 3,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed in Australia each year. The rate of secondary cancers is declining, thanks to earlier diagnosis and treatment, but breast cancer patients still have a 50 per cent chance of the disease spreading. The figure for prostate cancer stands at 20 per cent.
About 20 per cent of all referrals for radiotherapy in Australia are for palliative bone pain relief. Eighty per cent of those cases involve the spread of cancer to the bone from breast, prostate or lung cancer.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) produces radioisotopes used in nuclear medicine. Australians are estimated to require more than 430,000 doses of radiopharmaceuticals for nuclear medicine studies each year.