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Researchers testing virus-gene therapy combination against melanoma
July 02, 2009Researchers at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center are injecting a modified herpes virus into melanoma tumors, hoping to kill the cancer cells while also bolstering the body's immune defenses against the disease.
Gregory Daniels, MD, PhD, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and his co-workers are comparing the modified virus treatment, called OncoVEX GM-CSF, to general immune system stimulation with the immune-boosting protein GM-CSF in an international phase III trial for patients with advanced melanoma. The Moores UCSD Cancer Center is the only site in San Diego for the clinical trial.
Melanoma, the most dangerous kind of skin cancer, takes about 60,000 lives a year in this country. "Melanoma has always been curable, but only in a small fraction of patients," Daniels said. "Local tumor killing with immune activation may provide an additional tool to increase this number to a larger population of cancer patients."
According to Daniels, the injected virus appears to preferentially infect cancer cells, leading to tumor death. The expression of the GM-CSF protein may also direct an immune attack against both infected and non-infected tumors. The virus has in essence been genetically reprogrammed to target the cancer cells, while healthy cells remain relatively untouched. The research team is testing the two-pronged attack of direct tumor cell killing and immune activation. Their aim is to see if it will help those patients whose cancer has spread to other areas of the body to live longer without disease than has been possible with standard therapies.
While the field of cancer immunotherapy - employing the body's own immune system to fight cancer - has had mixed results to date, Daniels remains hopeful. Earlier stage testing showed that about 26 percent of patients receiving the OncoVEX GM-CSF therapy had either a partial or complete response, meaning their cancer either stopped growing or regressed.
Daniels said that while the therapy has been shown in earlier testing to destroy the injected tumors to some degree, it also causes a general change in the immune system, occasionally shrinking uninjected tumors. "It's a more active type of immunotherapy, causing a cascade of immune system activity in the body," he said.
The team hopes to enroll 30 patients with advanced melanoma. The cancer in these individuals cannot be removed surgically, and the patients must have had one failed prior therapy. The goal of the trial is not necessarily to cure the patients of their cancer, but to enable them to live disease-free for at least six months and longer. In all, 360 patients worldwide will ultimately participate in the trial. Twice as many patients will get the virus as will get the GM-CSF alone. As this is not a blinded study, those running the trial will know who is getting which therapy, but the treatments are randomly assigned to participants.
The virus infection-immune system-boosting approach could potentially be used for other types of cancers, Daniels said, such as colon, breast, prostate, bladder and lung.
University of California - San Diego
According to Daniels, the injected virus appears to preferentially infect cancer cells, leading to tumor death. The expression of the GM-CSF protein may also direct an immune attack against both infected and non-infected tumors. The virus has in essence been genetically reprogrammed to target the cancer cells, while healthy cells remain relatively untouched. The research team is testing the two-pronged attack of direct tumor cell killing and immune activation. Their aim is to see if it will help those patients whose cancer has spread to other areas of the body to live longer without disease than has been possible with standard therapies.
While the field of cancer immunotherapy - employing the body's own immune system to fight cancer - has had mixed results to date, Daniels remains hopeful. Earlier stage testing showed that about 26 percent of patients receiving the OncoVEX GM-CSF therapy had either a partial or complete response, meaning their cancer either stopped growing or regressed.
Daniels said that while the therapy has been shown in earlier testing to destroy the injected tumors to some degree, it also causes a general change in the immune system, occasionally shrinking uninjected tumors. "It's a more active type of immunotherapy, causing a cascade of immune system activity in the body," he said.
The team hopes to enroll 30 patients with advanced melanoma. The cancer in these individuals cannot be removed surgically, and the patients must have had one failed prior therapy. The goal of the trial is not necessarily to cure the patients of their cancer, but to enable them to live disease-free for at least six months and longer. In all, 360 patients worldwide will ultimately participate in the trial. Twice as many patients will get the virus as will get the GM-CSF alone. As this is not a blinded study, those running the trial will know who is getting which therapy, but the treatments are randomly assigned to participants.
The virus infection-immune system-boosting approach could potentially be used for other types of cancers, Daniels said, such as colon, breast, prostate, bladder and lung.
University of California - San Diego
Melanoma Current Events and Melanoma News RSSNew Notre Dame study provides insights into the molecular basis of tumor cell behavior
A new study by a team of researchers led by Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, sheds light on the molecular basis by which tumor cells modulate their surroundings to favor cancer progression.
Switching immunosuppressants reduces cancer risk in kidney
Switching to a newer type of immunosuppressant drug may reduce the high rate of skin cancer after kidney transplantation, according to research being presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 42nd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in San Diego, CA.
Cancer survivors may not be getting the help they need to stop smoking
More than a quarter of cancer survivors who still smoke have not been advised to quit smoking by their health care providers in the last year, according to a study published by researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the current issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Melanoma treatment options 1 step closer
A targeted chemotherapy for the treatment of skin cancer is one step closer, after a team of University of Alberta researchers successfully synthesized a natural substance that shows exceptional potential to specifically treat this often fatal disease.
Resident physicians seldom trained in skin cancer examination
Many resident physicians are not trained in skin cancer examinations, nor have they ever observed or practiced the procedure.
New findings on the formation of body pigment
The skin's pigment cells can be formed from completely different cells than has hitherto been thought, a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet shows. The results, which are published in the journal Cell, also mean the discovery of a new kind of stem cell.
Studying cancer in pet dogs to find new treatments for human patients
A team of scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, USA, says that studying pet dogs with cancer could yield valuable information on how to diagnose and treat human cancers.
NEDD9 Protein Supports Growth of Aggressive Breast Cancer
Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have demonstrated that a protein called NEDD9 may be required for some of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer to grow. Their findings, based on the study of a mouse model of breast cancer, are presented in a recent issue of Cancer Research, available on-line now.
A potential new imaging agent for early diagnosis of most serious skin cancer
Scientists in Australia are reporting development and testing in laboratory animals of a potential new material for diagnosing malignant melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer.
Certain cancers more common among HIV patients than non-HIV patients
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that non-AIDS-defining malignancies such as anal and lung cancer have become more prevalent among HIV-infected patients than non-HIV patients since the introduction of anti-retroviral therapies in the mid-1990s.
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