Are there new drugs for bile duct cancer, which is common in Asian people?

Cholangiocarcinoma, also known as “biliary cancer”, is the second most common hepatobiliary malignancy after liver cancer. Hong Kong star “Fat Sister” Shen Dianxia, ​​who was active in the entertainment industry in the 1990s and was known as the “happy fruit”, suffered from cholangiocarcinoma. She was diagnosed only half a year later and died in February 2008 at the age of 62. In July 2015, the 55-year-old president of Nintendo of Japan, Satoru Iwata, also died of the disease.

The bile duct (Gallbladder) is between the liver and the duodenum, and is a tube connecting the liver, gallbladder, and small intestine. Cholangiocarcinoma is known as the “hidden version of cancer king”. Its early symptoms are not obvious, and symptoms such as indigestion, abdominal pain, poor appetite, or weight loss appear in the early stage. Because the disease is not easy to diagnose, most patients are in the late stage when diagnosed, and symptoms such as jaundice, itching all over the body, dark urine or light stool, yellow eyes, etc., the mortality rate is extremely high, and the 5-year survival rate may be less than 10%. Most patients with this disease are over 60 years old, and men are slightly higher than women.

Taiho Oncology, a US pharmaceutical company, sponsored the development of a new targeted drug, Futibatinib (TAS-120), and recently launched a clinical study to recruit patients with advanced cholangiocarcinoma worldwide. The drug can inhibit the growth of cancer cells with FGFR protein gene mutations and provide targeted treatment for cholangiocarcinoma. The drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2022 for the treatment of patients with advanced cholangiocarcinoma.

The cholangiocarcinoma clinical study project will be completed by June 30, 2026, and 120 patients over the age of 18 will be required to participate in the clinical study. Researchers hope to test the safety of Futibatinib (TAS-120) at two different dose levels (20 mg and 16 mg), as well as its effectiveness against the disease. Patients can be treated with the drug orally once a day. This study drug may prove to be more effective than other available treatments for cancer (although it is not yet guaranteed), and the information obtained from the study will help understand cholangiocarcinoma and develop new treatments. More information about the study can be obtained on the ClinicalTrials.gov website, and the study number is NCT05727176.

Interested friends can also go to the Houston Cholangiocarcinoma Symposium for more details. The symposium will be held on December 13 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.