Dr. Fahd Al-Sharif, a consultant hematologist and bone marrow transplant at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, confirmed that modern treatments for cancer patients have proven successful after trying on Saudi patients, especially patients with immune plasma cell cancer, which affects defensive systems in the blood, making it unable to resist cells Cancer, where these drugs do not break down a group of proteins that control the life cycle of a cancerous cell, and the defect in breaking these proteins leads to tumors.
Dr. Al-Sharif pointed out that the new (Felicide) drug was approved by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a second treatment line for patients with immune plasma cell cancer, and it is expected to be approved as a first line of treatment after a year, noting that this drug, which is an injection, the latest shift Specific in the treatment of patients with the so-called multiple myeloma, and works to stop the activity of cancer cells that directly attack it and has the ability to influence very effectively on cancer cells without negligible effect on healthy cells.
Regarding the availability of the drug in Saudi hospitals, Dr. Fahd Al-Sharif indicated that the drug is currently only available in Al-Takhasosi, the Military Hospital in Riyadh, National Guard Hospitals, King Abdulaziz Cancer Center in Jeddah and King Fahd Teaching Hospital in Al-Khobar, noting that the hospital administration promised to provide additional quantities of it, Especially that the patients who were offered treatment have responded to it and stopped the spread of the tumor by 40%, adding that the hospital receives annually from 10 to 20 new cases of patients with this disease from within the country. The number of injured people who are diagnosed annually is 26 thousand cases annually in Europe and 30 thousand cases in the United States, and about 30 percent of patients only live longer than five years, where a study on patients who were treated with Felicid as a second treatment showed that it reduced the death rate At a rate of 55 per cent compared to the traditional treatment dexamethasone (a type of cortisone), more than 80 studies and scientific research on the use of the drug in both Europe and America are currently under way, and it has been registered in more than 50 countries around the world.
