United Arab Emirates has become the first country in the world to approve a new oral drug for hormone resistant breast cancer cases.
According to Gulf News, the United Arab Emirates has become the first country in the world to approve a new oral drug, Etcamah®, for a specific type of advanced or metastatic breast cancer, offering new hope to patients whose tumors have stopped responding to hormone therapy.
This is a genetic alteration that can occur while a patient is already undergoing endocrine (hormone) therapy.
According to the Emirates Drug Establishment, Etcamah® works by blocking and degrading estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells.
The report stated that in some tumors, these receptors act like fuel switches that drive the growth and spread of cancer. By shutting down and eliminating these receptors, the drug cuts off that signal.
