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CHICAGO — An experimental drug dramatically slowed the growth of glioma, a type of brain cancer, if the tumor carried a specific type of genetic alteration, researchers said Sunday, potentially sparing patients exposure to radiation and chemotherapy.

The drug, vorasidenib, is made by Servier Pharmaceuticals, a privately held drugmaker based in France. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Vorasidenib decreased the growth of grade 2 glioma tumors by 61%, meaning that it slowed the time it took tumors to be classified as progressing, or grow by more than a third. Progression took 11.1 months for those who took a placebo, and increased to 27.7 months for those who took vorasidenib.

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