Sirtex shares have soared after the biomedical group received a positive response from oncology experts to its liver cancer treatment.
The reaction from the American Society of Clinical Oncology's (ASCO) conference in Chicago at the weekend has spurred hopes that Sirtex can boost sales of its treatment.
Sirtex executives told delegates about a recent study that showed its SIR-Spheres treatment increased the amount of time liver cancer patients lived by around 7.9 months and reduced the risk of the disease spreading.
Chief executive Gilman Wong says feedback from the conference, which was attended by 30,000 oncology experts, indicated that the treatment could be used more widely as a first-line remedy for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).
"We are pleased with the outcome of the ASCO peer review process, which we believe will ultimately facilitate an increase in the utilisation of SIR-Spheres microspheres at an earlier stage of patient treatment," he said in a statement on Monday.
Sirtex shares closed $3.84, or 14.39 per cent, higher at $30.52 after hitting an intra-day high of $34.00.
Sirtex has been studying how effective its SIR-Spheres, internal radiation implants, are when used in combination with chemotherapy for patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver.
While a recent study of 500 patients discovered increased survival rates for patients, it failed to achieve its main aim of showing that using the spheres with chemotherapy was more effective than chemotherapy alone in treating patients.
Up to 90 per cent of mCRC patients die of liver failure as a result of the effects of tumours.
Associate Professor Peter Gibbs, a co-principal investigator of the microspheres investigation, said the findings were important because the liver is usually the organ where colorectal cancer spreads first.
He said while half of all colorectal cancer patients survive if the primary tumour is removed before the disease has spread, hundreds of thousands die each year because inoperable tumours subsequently appear in the liver.
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