When Larry Einhorn was a young physician in the early 1970s, actinomycin-D was the standard drug used to treat testicular cancer. It was—and still is—the most common carcinoma in young men ages 15-35.
The drug, alas, only provided a 5% to 10% cure rate, Einhorn said on Oct. 20, in a keynote address at the Association of American Cancer Institutes/Cancer Center Administrators Forum annual meeting.
“What revolutionized the cure rate…is cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (cisplatin or “platinum”), the first heavy metal ever to be evaluated as an anti-neoplastic agent,” said Einhorn, a distinguished professor, professor of medicine, and the Livestrong Foundation Professor of Oncology at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
But prior to 1974, “platinum was about to be thrown out. It had some activity in some common diseases, but the toxicity was overwhelming,” Einhorn said. “I doubt that this drug would ever have made it to further human trials were it not for the activity of the drug in testis cancer. And if a drug works, we usually can find, as a scientific community, how to mitigate the toxicity.
“Just as platinum has saved the lives of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of young men with testis cancer, testis cancer saved platinum.”
Today, cisplatin is the first-line therapy for around a dozen different malignancies. Einhorn’s work on platinum-based chemotherapy in testicular cancer helped pave the way.
Read the full story about Einhorn’s contributions to this transformative therapy and watch a recording of his keynote address on the Cancer History Project:
Larry Einhorn, pioneer of platinum-based chemotherapy, discusses 50 years of cancer treatment innovation
By the Cancer History Project, Nov. 22, 2024
Related articles:
- Einhorn: “I Still Harbor Hope For Similar Success Stories” (Conversation with The Cancer Letter)
By Matthew Bin Han Ong, Oct. 24, 2014
- Doctor and Patient Reflect on the Cure
By Matthew Bin Han Ong, Oct. 24, 2014
- John Mark Cleland, first man to be cured of metastatic testicular cancer, dies at 71
By Lawrence H. Einhorn and Daniel F. Hayes, Feb. 25, 2022
This column features the latest posts to the Cancer History Project by our growing list of contributors.
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