Eighty percent of bowel cancers halted with existing medicines
The study found that medicines called ‘JAK inhibitors’ halted tumour growth in bowel cancers with a genetic mutation that is present in more than 80 per cent of bowel cancers. Multiple JAK inhibitors are currently used, or are in clinical trials, for diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, blood cancers and myeloproliferative disorders. Bowel cancer is the second-most common cancer in Australia with nearly 17,000 people diagnosed every year, accounting for almost one out of 10 cancer-related deaths. Dr Toby Phesse, Dr Michael Buchert, Associate Professor Matthias Ernst and colleagues from Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, in collaboration with Australian and international researchers, commenced the study while at the Melbourne-Parkville branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research…