Cancer Research Journal » Clinical Trials

Northwestern Nanodiamonds Kill the Cancer Left Behind

Lisa — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:30:53 +0000

Scientists at Northwestern University have developed an innovative device that delivers drugs to cancer cells left inside the body after a tumor is surgically removed.

The flexible microfilm device is constructed from an FDA-approved material called polymer parylene which can be constructed in any shape and looks like a piece of plastic wrap. The patch-like film is embedded with millions of tiny nanodiamonds loaded with chemotherapy drugs then placed where residual disease cells are present.

Once in place, the semi-porous nanodiamond device is specifically designed to slowly and consistently release chemotherapy over weeks or months rather than administering it in larger single doses as often done in conventional treatment regimens.

The scientists say nanodiamonds are economical to construct and have already been successfully mass-produced for use in other automobile and electronics applications. Plus, nanodiamonds have a versatile architecture which can store a variety of treatments including small molecule, protein, antibody and RNA or DNA-based therapies.

Northwestern’s research team used Doxorubicin, a drug used to treat many forms of cancer, to test their device’s drug delivery capabilities over a one-month period. The test results indicated nanodiamonds effectively delivered the chemotherapy throughout the one-month period and indications are the device is capable of continuing treatments over substantially longer periods of time.

Northwestern’s research team was led by Dean Ho, a member of the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center and an assistant professor at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr Ho’s team included scientists from Northwestern University and Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan.

Ho is currently involved with pre-clinical trials of the device. His team is optimistic nanodiamond-embedded parylene devices will improve treatments for future cancer patients by reducing the possible complications and toxic side effects associated with chemotherapy. As Dr Ho said,

“Several surgeons at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, as well as other medical school and hospitals, are very interested in the device because it is biocompatible and provides such stable and consistent drug release.”

Dean Ho, PhD
Asst Professor, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Northwestern University

If you’d like to learn more, the team’s research has been published in the October 2, 2008, edition of the journal ACS Nano.

Source: Northwestern University NewsCenter

Related Links: EurekAlert!; ScienceDaily

Tags: adjuvant therapy; biotechnology; minimally invasive; oncology; nanomedicine; nanotechnology; targeted therapy; personalized medicine; pharmaceutical and medical devices

All UK Cancer Patients Will Get Information on Clinical Trials

Lisa — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:58:39 +0000

Health officials in the United Kingdom are implementing a new program to ensure patients with cancer and other serious diseases are kept better informed about ongoing clinical research related to their condition.

The goal of this new government program is to increase patient awareness about clinical trials taking place to advance medical research. The program calls for all patients to be routinely informed about scientific studies relevant to their case.

In addition to keeping individuals updated on new treatment options, the initiative also seeks to make it easier for patients who meet study criteria to participate in clinical trials.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced his plans for the new program at a summit hosted by the Prime Minister commemorating 60 years of research by the National Health Service. During his speech, Secretary Johnson praised the contributions of past patients, clinicians and scientists whose research efforts have helped ensure the health of today’s population. When asked about this new initiative, the head of the UK’s leading cancer charity had this to say,

“It shows a commitment to provide more information about the health research taking place in this country, and to involve and recruit more patients in clinical trials. This is good news for patients, both now and in the future.”

Harpal Kumar
Chief Executive, Cancer Research UK

If you’re a cancer patient in the United States who’d like to learn more about clinical trials being conducted both here and abroad, you can ask your oncologist or visit http://clinicaltrials.gov/.

Source: Cancer Research UK News

Technorati Tags: cancer awareness; health reform; England; outreach programs; patient-centered care; public health education; volunteers

Lipidoids Could Deliver RNAi Treatments Directly to Cancer

Lisa — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:03:26 +0000

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: ALNY) have discovered a method which makes it possible to deliver powerful RNA interference (RNAi) therapies directly to the precise location where cancer or viral infections are developing.

RNAi therapies are designed to turn on and off disease-causing genes. Early RNAi studies suggest they have potential for treating a variety of diseases, but further research has been difficult because scientists lacked an effective way to safely deliver the drugs to the targeted tissues.

The team from MIT and Alnylam came up with a technique which allows the high speed production of lipid-like molecules, known as lipidoids. These nanoscale lipidoids are capable of delivering customized RNAi drugs directly to malignant or infected cells.

The lipidoids were already successfully tested in mice, rats, and cynomolgus monkeys and the team hopes to test them in human clinical trials within the next few years. As the study’s senior author said,

“RNA interference is a tool that has a lot of people excited, and one reason for the excitement is that we hope it will provide a new method to control almost any gene in your body.”

Dr Daniel Anderson
David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT

If you’d like to learn more about this discovery, the team’s work has been published as the cover story of the April 2008 edition of Nature Biotechnology.

Source: MIT News

Prostate Cancer Treatment Effectiveness Could Rely on P53

Lisa — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:24:54 +0000

A study led by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center suggests that tumors with intact P53 genes may respond better to prostate cancer treatments designed to target insulin-like growth factor 1 receptors (IGF-1R).

Fred Hutchinson’s findings could have an important impact on more than a dozen clinical trials currently being conducted to test IGF-1R inhibitors.

Previous research has shown elevated IGF-1R levels increase the risk of prostate cancer, but Fred Hutchinson’s comparison of transgenic mice with intact p53 genes and compromised p53 genes revealed that deleting IGF-1R promoted aggressive prostate cancers in the mice with compromised p53.

Since p53 status was not part of the criteria considered for participants in the inhibitor trials, clinicians administering treatments targeting IGF-IR will need to give this new data careful consideration. As one of the study’s authors said,

“If our predictions hold true, tumor cells with intact p53 may show the best response to therapy targeting the IGF-1R signal, however when p53 is not functioning normally, response to this therapy may not be as expected.”

“We’re all hoping for good results but let’s proceed with caution.”

Norman Greenberg, PhD
Clinical Research Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

If you’d like to learn more, the team’s findings have been published in the May 1, 2008, edition of Cancer Research.

Source: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center News

Related Links: womenshealth.gov; American Cancer Society

Technorati Tags: oncology; urology; male cancers; genitourinary carcinoma; Seattle, WA

MPD Blood Cancer Treatment Begins Human Trials

Lisa — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:27:30 +0000

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have begun Phase I clinical trials of a new drug designed to treat myeloproliferative diseases (MPD) that sometimes develop into acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).

Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have already used the new drug, an orally-administered compound known as TG101348, to successfully treat chronic blood cancers in mice. Brigham and Women’s animal study showed the investigational drug dramatically increased survival rates without causing toxicity.

The TG101348 drug (designed by biopharmaceutical company TargeGen, Inc) works by targeting JAK2, a protein that promotes blood cell growth.

Mutations in JAK2 can produce runaway red and white blood cell growth leading to bone marrow damage, blood clots, painful spleen enlargement, excessive bleeding and infections. While some patients live for years with MPD, others develop AML — a potentially fatal form of blood cancer.

MPD affects approximately 80,000 patients in the US and limited treatment options currently exist. But TG101348’s promising results in mice have the scientists enthusiastic about testing it’s effectiveness in human trials. As one Dana-Farber researcher said,

“A betting person would be excited about this.”

Richard Stone, MD
Oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

If you’d like to learn more about the TG101348 study, a report has been published in the April 7, 2008, edition of the journal Cancer Cell.

Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital News

Technorati Tags: polycythemia vera; National Institutes of Health; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; MPD Foundation; Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; Mayo Clinic; hematologic malignancies

Boston Builds Better Mouse Model for Metastatic Cancer

Lisa — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:47:15 +0000

Biologists at Boston College have developed a more effective mouse model for studying how cancer spreads through the human body.

Boston’s team developed two cell lines which express all the major biological characteristics of human metastatic cancer only three weeks after being injected into healthy laboratory mice. In typical mouse models, researchers must transplant cancer cells into animals with disabled immune systems or wait several months before cancer can be detected – sometimes waiting weeks to study a cancer that never develops.

Metastasis, the spread of cancer from the primary site to other organs and tissues in the body, is the primary cause of cancer patient death. Because animal models fail to consistently reproduce human metastases, cancer researchers often have to test new treatments on human patients.

But Boston’s team reports two of the three cell lines they created successfully generated tumors in 100% of the mice injected. (The third line grew rapidly, but failed to produce metastatic cancer.) These disease models have already helped Boston’s biologists find out more about macrophage properties of cancer cells and they’re predicted to help speed the pace of future studies as well. As the team’s project leader said,

“What we have developed is the first model in the mouse that replicates all of the hallmarks of metastatic cancer. Now, we have a tool that can be effective in identifying basic mechanisms and new therapies to treat the disease.”

Thomas Seyfried, PhD
Biologist, Boston College

If you’d like to learn more about the models, the scientists are publishing their findings in the online edition of the International Journal of Cancer Research. Findings will also be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research being held April 12-16, 2008, in San Diego, California.

Source: ScienceDaily

Campaign Calls for Alternative Treatments in Clinical Trials

Lisa — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:06:58 +0000

An alternative health company is asking citizens of the United Kingdom to support legislation which would include herbal supplements and other natural treatments in clinical trials comparing the effectiveness of investigational drugs against a placebo.

Sweet Cures of York, a marketer of herbal products and natural remedies, has launched a campaign to gain public support for required testing of alternative medicines alongside new pharmaceuticals and placebos in clinical research that’s conducted as part of the drug approval process.

Representatives from the company point out that evaluating the effectiveness of natural remedies under the same laboratory conditions as investigational medications and placebos gives a truer indication of drug efficacy.

It could also provide healthcare consumers and professionals better scientific evidence for determining which alternative treatments actually work and which don’t — a conclusion that’s often hard to come by given the conflicting claims and limited peer-reviewed research available for many of today’s popular natural products.

Opponents of the proposed measure have expressed concerns that adding alternative medicines into the research mix would make the approval process for new chemotherapies and other prescription medications longer and more expensive than it already is.

Whichever side you support, discussion about using herbal supplements, food-based remedies, and lifestyle changes to treat cancer and other serious conditions is likely to continue. As one herbal expert put it,

“Until tamoxifen and raloxifene are compared to standardized bean soup and/or to kudzu no one knows for sure – not you, me or the ACS.”

James Duke, PhD
The Herbal Insider

If you’d like to learn more about the use of alternative medicines in the US, you can visit the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine from the National Institutes of Health.

Source: Medical News Today

Related Links: MD Anderson Cancer Center; ScienceDaily

Technorati Tags: allopathic medicine; holistic medicine; health policy; healthcare reform; patient-centered care; clinical oncology; botanicals; pharmacology

Cream Treats Precancerous Vulva Lesions Linked to HPV

Lisa — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:36:13 +0000

Dutch scientists have published a study showing a topical cream called imiquimod effectively treats lesions on the vulva before they become cancerous – a discovery that could one day help women exposed to the human papillomavirus (HPV) avoid cancer surgery on their genitals.

The American Cancer Society predicts that approximately 3,500 new cases of vulvar cancer will diagnosed in the US this year, and one-third to one-half of the cases will be related to infection with HPV.

This rare genital cancer is currently treated with chemotherapy, radiation or surgery to remove all of part of the patient’s vulva.

But new research conducted by Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam indicates precancerous vulva lesions can be reduced and, in some cases, eliminated completely by applying topical imiquimod cream before the HPV-infected cells have a chance to become malignant.

To arrive at the findings, the team studied 52 women with grade 2 or 3 vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia, commonly referred to as VIN. Half of the study group had 250 mg of 5 percent imiquimod cream applied to their lesions twice weekly for 16 weeks while the other half received a placebo. Their investigation revealed that 81 percent of the patients receiving the treatment experienced more than a 25 percent reduction in the size of their lesions and nine patients had their precancerous lesions disappear completely. None of the placebo patients experienced similar results.

The cream works by helping the body’s own immune system fight off HPV, but additional studies are needed to find out why some patients benefit from its impact while others do not.

The study’s author stressed that the cream was only tested as a treatment for precancerous lesions – not vulvar cancer itself, but she believes imiquimod should be considered as a “first choice treatment” to reduce the presence of HPV-associated lesions before they develop into cancer. As she explained,

“This is a disease that is normally treated by surgery, but that just takes away a lesion without getting at HPV, a common underlying root of the disease. So you have a chance that the lesion will come back, time and time again. But we found that the cream is a much less invasive and friendly way to get good lasting results.”

Dr Manon van Seters
Dept of Gynecology, Erasmus University Medical Center

Imiquimod cream has already been approved for the treatment of precancerous skin lesions and superficial basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.

If you’d like to learn more about the imiquimod study, the findings have been published in the April 3, 2008, edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Source: HealthDay News Article from US News and World Report

Melanoma Treatment Trials Halted by Pfizer

Lisa — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:13:21 +0000

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) has announced they’re discontinuing Phase III clinical trials on tremelimumab, an experimental treatment for melanoma.

The company terminated the trials because their research indicates the developmental drug is no more effective than existing chemotherapies already approved to treat the potentially deadly skin cancer.

A representative from Pfizer Global Research and Development called tremelimumab’s trial results disappointing, but said the corporation remains committed to investigating new treatment options for melanoma patients.

If you’re a patient or health professional in the US who’d like to learn more about other therapies already approved for melanoma, you can visit the National Cancer Institute’s Melanoma Home Page.

Source: PharmaTimes.com

Related Podcast: Melanoma from the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center

Technorati Tags: cutaneous malignancy; oncology; New London, Connecticut

Wake Forest Finds Oxaliplatin Dosage for Peritoneal Cancer

Lisa — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:54:53 +0000

Researchers from Wake Forest University have completed a Phase I study that may help improve the survival rate for patients with appendix cancer or colorectal cancer that’s spread to their abdomen.

Wake Forest’s study identified the maximum amount of a chemotherapy drug peritoneal cancer patients can successfully tolerate during Intraperitoneal Hyperthermic Chemotherapy (IPHC) treatments following cancer surgery.

Wake Forest’s study included 15 colorectal and appendiceal cancer patients who underwent surgery to remove as much of their cancer as possible, but whose disease had spread to lining of the abdominal cavity.

Wake Forest’s investigation indicated that doses containing 200 mg/m2 of the drug oxaliplatin (US brand name Eloxatin) were well tolerated by the study population when administered during two-hour IHPC sessions. IHPC is a chemoperfusion process where the body cavity is heated before chemotherapy drugs are circulated throughout the abdomen. It is done following cytoreductive surgery to kill cancer cells that are left behind.

Doses of 250mg/m2 were also attempted, but resulted in high toxicity levels.

Oxaliplatin is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and has been proven to be an effective treatment for many colorectal cancers. Previous studies have indicated that heating before oxaliplatin is administered increases its cancer-killing capabilities, but an effective dose had to be determined before studies could progress. As one Wake Forest researcher said,

“Based on the data from this phase I study, we propose to conduct a larger trial with oxaliplatin dose to study its efficacy in improving outcomes in patients with peritoneal carcinoma.”

John H. Stewart IV, MD
Assistant Professor of Surgery,
Wake Forest University School of Medicine

Findings from the Wake Forest study were presented at the 61st Annual Symposium of the Society of Surgical Oncology, held March 13-16, 2008, in Chicago.

If you’d like to learn more about other peritoneal cancer studies being conducted, you can visit the ClinicalTrials.gov web site.

Source: Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center