Cancer treatment using immunotherapy now available in Jordan

AMMAN — Cancer treatment using immunotherapy drugs is now available in Jordan after being approved by the concerned authorities, giving more choices to patients based on the type of cancer and their response to a certain treatment, said Sana Sukhun, the president of Jordan Oncology Society, on Tuesday.

According to Sukhun, with this “revolutionary” therapy, cancer can be now treated in five ways — surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy and the new immunotherapy.

She explained that the new antibody, pembrolizumab, can be used to treat patients with advanced melanoma and lung cancer.

The oncologist told reporters that this kind of treatment is important in Jordan because lung cancer prevalence in the Kingdom is on the rise, and it is the leading cancer incidence among Jordanian men.

According to the National Cancer Registry, lung cancer cases increased from 198 in 2000 to 292 in 2012.

Also speaking at the press conference, Rolf A. Stahel, a member of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, said immunotherapy will change treatment of all cancer patients in the future. 

Using it, he added, helps patients’ immunity system to fight the disease.

For melanoma cancer, a patient can now be cured from the disease, Stahel said.

Although not all patients might benefit from this cure, more research will be conducted for that purpose and to identify who can benefit from it, he added at the press meeting, organised by Merck Sharp and Dohme.

However, one main concern about such medications is its high cost, according to the experts.

According to the latest issued statistics (2012 National Cancer Registry Report), the total number of Jordanian cancer cases was 5,013, with 2,346 cases for males (46.8 per cent) and 2,667 for females (53.2 per cent). 

Lung cancer was ranked among the top five cancers in Jordanians, and was the most common cancer among men with 292 cases (12.4 per cent).