ADC precisely attacks cancer cells, and the lesions of an elderly woman with terminal cancer are gone in half a year

Another feature of ADC drugs is that they can kill surrounding cancer cells while blasting target cancer cells, which is called the “bystander effect . “

Chen Junyi explained that the cells in tumor tissues are highly heterogeneous, for example, some are “HER-2 positive” and some are “HER-2 negative”. Drugs targeting “HER-2” can penetrate the cell membranes of nearby cells while blasting “HER-2 positive” cells, destroying the surrounding “HER-2 negative” cells at the same time.

The “bystander effect” also makes ADC drugs more widely applicable. Take breast cancer as an example. In the past, “HER-2” targeted drugs could only be used for “HER-2 positive” breast cancer, and could not treat “HER-2 negative” breast cancer. ADC drugs broke this boundary, allowing “HER-2” ADC drugs to be used by patients with weak positive breast cancer among “HER-2 negative” breast cancer.

Wenner introduced that there are two ADC drugs for treating triple-negative breast cancer: Sacituzumab Govitecan , which is more effective than other drugs for women with recurrent breast cancer; and Trastuzumab Deruxtecan , which is suitable for tumors with a small amount of “Her-2”.

Two major advantages of ADC drugs

Chen Junyi said that ADC drugs have two major advantages:

Precise attack on cancer cells

Chen Junyi explained that ADC is an upgraded version of traditional chemotherapy. Its function is the same as chemotherapy, but it can be delivered to cancer cells more accurately, “achieving the effect of precise landing and precise delivery.”

High treatment efficiency

Because ADC can deliver powerful anti-cancer drugs into cancer cells more accurately, the dosage of chemical drugs used in ADC is lower than that of ordinary chemotherapy drugs; even chemotherapy drugs that were very effective but had great side effects in the past can be delivered into cancer cells using ADC, improving patients’ tolerance to treatment. “When the effective dose of drug treatment is reduced and the tolerance dose is increased, the treatment window can be expanded,” said Chen Junyi.

Side effects may damage eyes and lungs

However, Winner said that ADC drugs are not as precise as we would like and may still cause chemotherapy side effects such as hair loss, nausea, and low blood cell counts.