Early trials of a new form of gene therapy may give hope to patients
battling Glioblastoma, the most deadly form of brain cancer. Called AdV-Tk therapy, the new treatment involves two steps. As the
researchers explained it, the first step involves taking DNA from the
herpes virus and injecting it into tumor cells, and then attacking those DNA-tagged cells with a powerful drug.
In the second step, the drug helps spur the patient's immune systems to eliminate more of the cancer cells over time. All of the patients in the study had also undergone surgeries aimed at minimizing the tumor, the researchers noted.
"Surgery, along with chemotherapy and radiation, is the only current
treatment option," he added. "This cancer is like an octopus, it reaches
into all parts of the brain [and] you can only ever get some of it out."
However, "this particular gene therapy is better than anything else
we have," said Baskin, who also directs the Peak Brain Tumor Center at
the Houston hospital. "By inserting a virus into the tumor, then
attacking that virus with medication while also firing up the patient's
own immune system, you can get a real one-two punch treatment effect, and prolonged survival."
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
A game changer in Cancer Treatment
Nausea and vomiting, common side effects of chemotherapy, may soon be a thing of the past. Heron Therapeutics’drug Sustol significantly reduced symptoms in patients participating in
late stage trials, according to the company. The stock jumped more than
60% on the news in part because the study showed the drug works longer
than current treatments.
Eight out of every 10 people treated for cancer using chemotherapy experience waves of nausea, according to the American Cancer Society. Many patients suffer in the days following chemotherapy after initial treatments wear off.
CEO Barry Quart stated, “Went after an area of unmet medical needs,” adding that the drug can ward off the effects of chemo for up to five days following treatment, longer than rivals. “We feel very good that we have been able to differentiate our product.” He believes Sustol is more effective than the current leading drug Aloxi, made by Helsinn Healthcare S.A.
Sustol, which is part of a three-drug regime, is injected about 30 minutes before chemotherapy and is typically administered in oncology centers.
Quart said the company will file an application for approval with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) in a “couple of months.” From that date, the FDA could issue a decision in as little as six months. If approved, Quart says the company can have the drug available in a month or two and plans to hire a new team of sales reps nationally.
Eight out of every 10 people treated for cancer using chemotherapy experience waves of nausea, according to the American Cancer Society. Many patients suffer in the days following chemotherapy after initial treatments wear off.
CEO Barry Quart stated, “Went after an area of unmet medical needs,” adding that the drug can ward off the effects of chemo for up to five days following treatment, longer than rivals. “We feel very good that we have been able to differentiate our product.” He believes Sustol is more effective than the current leading drug Aloxi, made by Helsinn Healthcare S.A.
Sustol, which is part of a three-drug regime, is injected about 30 minutes before chemotherapy and is typically administered in oncology centers.
Quart said the company will file an application for approval with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) in a “couple of months.” From that date, the FDA could issue a decision in as little as six months. If approved, Quart says the company can have the drug available in a month or two and plans to hire a new team of sales reps nationally.
Cancer trials are changing, Nationwide in July
The National Cancer Institute’s announced that
it will soon begin a nationwide trial to test treatments based on the
genetic mutations in patients’ tumors, rather than on where the tumors
occur in the body, highlights a profound shift taking place in the
development of cancer drugs.
Researchers increasingly are using DNA sequencing, which has become far faster and cheaper over time, to identify molecular abnormalities in cancers. That technology is allowing them to develop drugs they hope will prove more effective in specific sets of patients and to design clinical trials that get the most promising drugs to market more quickly.
“We are truly in a paradigm change,” James H. Doroshow, director of the division of cancer treatment and diagnosis at the NCI, said in announcing the initiative Monday. He called the project “the largest and most rigorous precision oncology trial that’s ever been attempted.”
The NCI project announced Monday comes amid a push by the Obama administration to promote “precision medicine.” Beginning July 1, the institute will begin screening several thousand patients at 2,400 sites around the country, from large academic hospitals to community medical facilities. Those who meet certain criteria will be sorted into nearly two dozen treatment arms of 30 to 35 patients each, based on the genetic mutations of their cancers.
Researchers increasingly are using DNA sequencing, which has become far faster and cheaper over time, to identify molecular abnormalities in cancers. That technology is allowing them to develop drugs they hope will prove more effective in specific sets of patients and to design clinical trials that get the most promising drugs to market more quickly.
“We are truly in a paradigm change,” James H. Doroshow, director of the division of cancer treatment and diagnosis at the NCI, said in announcing the initiative Monday. He called the project “the largest and most rigorous precision oncology trial that’s ever been attempted.”
The NCI project announced Monday comes amid a push by the Obama administration to promote “precision medicine.” Beginning July 1, the institute will begin screening several thousand patients at 2,400 sites around the country, from large academic hospitals to community medical facilities. Those who meet certain criteria will be sorted into nearly two dozen treatment arms of 30 to 35 patients each, based on the genetic mutations of their cancers.
Monday, June 1, 2015
New Combo Therapies for forms of Leukemia, Lymphoma and Breast Cancer
Asher Chanan-Khan, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., called the
addition of ibrutinib, a drug that targets cancer cells, to the
chemotherapy agent bendamustine and the immunotherapy drug rituximab "a
blessing from God" for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who
had not responded well to the two drugs alone. Khan, who led a study of
the three-drug combination therapy, said its development will wind up as
the "most important changing point in the history" of the disease.
In a study of 578 people, the group of patients that received the third drug improved their chances of avoiding progression of the disease or death by 80 percent when compared to patients who received a placebo. Perhaps more significantly, a median limit for progression free survival of the patients receiving the third drug had not yet been reached when the study results were collected. The drug was deemed so effective that 90 patients who had received the placebo were switched over to the group getting the third drug.
The triple-drug therapy had no more side effects than the traditional treatment, the research showed.
When a separate group of researchers added a cancer-targeting drug called obinutuzumab to the chemotherapy drug bendamustine, they produced much better results for people suffering from the "indolent" form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
In a study of 578 people, the group of patients that received the third drug improved their chances of avoiding progression of the disease or death by 80 percent when compared to patients who received a placebo. Perhaps more significantly, a median limit for progression free survival of the patients receiving the third drug had not yet been reached when the study results were collected. The drug was deemed so effective that 90 patients who had received the placebo were switched over to the group getting the third drug.
The triple-drug therapy had no more side effects than the traditional treatment, the research showed.
When a separate group of researchers added a cancer-targeting drug called obinutuzumab to the chemotherapy drug bendamustine, they produced much better results for people suffering from the "indolent" form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
New treatments prolong health after Breast Cancer
A new targeted therapy that appears to double the amount of time cancer can be held in check, a drug that offers more women
a chance at healthy lives post-diagnosis and a surgical option to
remove extra tissue in order to reduce the likelihood of cancer's return
were among the findings presented at the American Society of Clinical
Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.
The targeted drug, palbociclib, is made by Pfizer and was granted accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this year for use in women with the most common form of advanced breast cancer, known as estrogen receptor positive (ER+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2-). According to the findings of a phase III trial presented at the ASCO meeting, the drug when used in combination with an anti-estrogen agent called Fulvestrant was able to double the time women spent without having their cancer advance.
The combination delayed disease progression for just over nine months, compared to nearly four months in women taking Fulvestrant alone, according to a randomized study of 521 women, most of whom were post-menopausal. Those results led investigators to stop the trial early because it was so effective."After initial hormonal therapy stops working in metastatic breast cancer, the next step is typically chemotherapy, which can be effective, but the side effects are often very difficult for women," said lead study author Nicholas C. Turner, a consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden and a team leader at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom.
"This relatively easy-to-take new drug can substantially delay the point when women need to start chemotherapy, making this an exciting new approach for women."
The targeted drug, palbociclib, is made by Pfizer and was granted accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this year for use in women with the most common form of advanced breast cancer, known as estrogen receptor positive (ER+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2-). According to the findings of a phase III trial presented at the ASCO meeting, the drug when used in combination with an anti-estrogen agent called Fulvestrant was able to double the time women spent without having their cancer advance.
The combination delayed disease progression for just over nine months, compared to nearly four months in women taking Fulvestrant alone, according to a randomized study of 521 women, most of whom were post-menopausal. Those results led investigators to stop the trial early because it was so effective."After initial hormonal therapy stops working in metastatic breast cancer, the next step is typically chemotherapy, which can be effective, but the side effects are often very difficult for women," said lead study author Nicholas C. Turner, a consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden and a team leader at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom.
"This relatively easy-to-take new drug can substantially delay the point when women need to start chemotherapy, making this an exciting new approach for women."
Cancer study could change Radiation Treatment
The study, one of three discussed at an American Society of Clinical
Oncology conference in Chicago, found that contrary to conventional
wisdom, radiation therapy to the whole brain did not improve survival,
and harmed memory, speech and thinking skills.
“This is the classic question: Which is worse, the disease or the treatment?” said one study leader, Dr Jan Buckner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Radiation helped control the cancer, Dr Buckner said, “but at the cost of cognitive decline”.
The two other studies discussed on Sunday also questioned longstanding ways in which patients are treated. One found that removing lymph nodes when oral cancers are first diagnosed, not routinely done now, dramatically improves survival. Another found the opposite was true for people with the skin cancer melanoma that had spread to a few lymph nodes.
The first study affects the most patients by far. An estimated 400,000 patients in the US alone each year have cancer that spreads to the brain, usually from the lungs, breast or other sites.
Dr Paul Brown of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer in Houston led a study of 213 patients with one to three tumors in the brain to see whether the risks of whole brain radiation were worth its help in controlling cancer.
Half of the patients had the usual radio-surgery and the rest had that followed by whole brain radiation. Three months later, 92% of patients who got both treatments had cognitive decline versus 64% of those given just radio-surgery.
“The negative effects far outweigh any benefits” of the combination treatment, Brown said.
“This is the classic question: Which is worse, the disease or the treatment?” said one study leader, Dr Jan Buckner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Radiation helped control the cancer, Dr Buckner said, “but at the cost of cognitive decline”.
The two other studies discussed on Sunday also questioned longstanding ways in which patients are treated. One found that removing lymph nodes when oral cancers are first diagnosed, not routinely done now, dramatically improves survival. Another found the opposite was true for people with the skin cancer melanoma that had spread to a few lymph nodes.
The first study affects the most patients by far. An estimated 400,000 patients in the US alone each year have cancer that spreads to the brain, usually from the lungs, breast or other sites.
Dr Paul Brown of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer in Houston led a study of 213 patients with one to three tumors in the brain to see whether the risks of whole brain radiation were worth its help in controlling cancer.
Half of the patients had the usual radio-surgery and the rest had that followed by whole brain radiation. Three months later, 92% of patients who got both treatments had cognitive decline versus 64% of those given just radio-surgery.
“The negative effects far outweigh any benefits” of the combination treatment, Brown said.
The big new hope for Cancer Treatment
In Chicago, at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (Asco)
annual meeting, where so many promising cancer drugs have been announced
in the past, not always in the long term fulfilling the high hopes,
experts are saying that the results of a trial involving a combination
of two new immunotherapy drugs for melanoma patients are
spectacular.
Half the patients in the British trial, considered terminally ill and with little time left, responded to ipilimumab, a drug licensed four years ago, combined with the new and the unlicensed drug nivolumab. On its own, ipilimumab works for around a fifth of patients. The combination of the two shrank the tumours of 58% of patients. There is hope they may disappear altogether. Results from the trial of 945 patients, led by the Royal Marsden hospital in London, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with the conference presentation.
Both ipilimumab, sold under the brand name Yervoy, and nivolumab were developed by an American biotech firm called Medarex, based in New Jersey and set up by a handful of immunologists from Dartmouth medical school. Their belief in immunotherapy for cancer has been amply rewarded – in 2009, their small company was bought by the pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb. The following year, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the first major trial results of ipilimumab. Companies have been clambering over each other to get involved ever since.
Half the patients in the British trial, considered terminally ill and with little time left, responded to ipilimumab, a drug licensed four years ago, combined with the new and the unlicensed drug nivolumab. On its own, ipilimumab works for around a fifth of patients. The combination of the two shrank the tumours of 58% of patients. There is hope they may disappear altogether. Results from the trial of 945 patients, led by the Royal Marsden hospital in London, were published in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with the conference presentation.
Both ipilimumab, sold under the brand name Yervoy, and nivolumab were developed by an American biotech firm called Medarex, based in New Jersey and set up by a handful of immunologists from Dartmouth medical school. Their belief in immunotherapy for cancer has been amply rewarded – in 2009, their small company was bought by the pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb. The following year, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the first major trial results of ipilimumab. Companies have been clambering over each other to get involved ever since.
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