Category: Treatments
Penn Researchers Developing Protein ‘Passport’ To Help Deliver Cancer Drugs
The body’s immune system is designed to defend against bacteria, viruses and other perceived “foreign invaders” that assault the body. Unfortunately, the immune system doesn’t distinguish between harmful bacteria and friendly foreign objects such as medical devices implanted in a patient or nanoparticles used to deliver medicine to tumors. That poses complications to doctors trying to administer treatments to people with cancer, including malignant mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.
Doctors would like to avoid triggering an inflammatory response in cancer patients when they administer medicine or when implanting a pacemaker or artificial joint. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are experimenting with what they describe as “a passport” to allow therapeutic devices to get past the immune system, according to new research published in the journal Science.
The human body’s innate immune system responds to foreign bodies in a generalized way, trying to destroy anything it doesn’t recognize as a part of the body. The team of Penn researchers says the solution is to make the foreign particles seem like part of the body so the immune system doesn’t destroy them.
The researchers reported this week that they had accomplished that feat in lab mice, attaching customized protein fragments to foreign particles that tricked the animals’ immune system. The key was tricking the immune-system “border guards” known as macrophages that are a type of white blood cell that find and eat invaders. Macrophages continually monitor the bloodstream for a type of protein called CD47, a marker of self. If an object such as a red blood cell has CD47 on its membrane, the macrophages let it pass.
The Penn team leader, Dennis E. Discher, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, compared CD47 to a passport that identifies a cell as part of the body rather than a foreign object. The research team attached fragments of CD47 to plastic nanoparticles, then injected them into laboratory mice. Nanoparticles, which are smaller than one-billionth of a meter, are useful in delivering, antibodies, drugs and imaging agents and are being studied for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
The researchers said the technique enhanced the performance of nanoparticles carrying tumor-shrinking medicine and other loaded with dye to capture images of the tumors. They observed that the particles carrying a cancer drug Taxol were shrinking tumors in mice.
Discher said in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the technique could be useful in overcoming resistance to much larger foreign objects in the body such as pacemakers and joint replacements.
Researchers not involved in the research called it a promising advance, though it will take some years before the technique is ready to use with human cancer patients.
Know more about mesothelioma and how you can deal with it.
Presiding Officer Enrolled in Experimental Treatment for Mesothelioma
The leader of the Suffolk County Legislature, William Lindsay, will begin next week an experimental treatment for mesothelioma overseen by the National Institutes of Health, according to Long Island Newsday.
Lindsay, a former electrician and official with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was diagnosed in 2012 with malignant pleural mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. The cancer diagnosis came soon after he had been elected to a seventh term as the legislature’s presiding officer.
Lindsay worked as an electrician for 15 years and served for 23 years as a business agent and business manager of Local 25 of the IBEW. As an electrician, he had to scrape off the asbestos fireproofing from a beam before attaching electrical conduits to it, according to Long Island Politics. Electricians are among the occupations with a higher risk of occupational exposure to asbestos and higher rates of mesothelioma.
Lindsay has been receiving treatment at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since undergoing surgery last May to remove a diseased lung. “We don’t realize how lucky we are, being in the New York vicinity, to be near some of the greatest hospitals and physicians, probably in the world,” Lindsay said, according to minutes of a Suffolk County Legislature meeting.
Lindsay is 67 years old. Many victims of mesothelioma are in their 60s and 70s when they are diagnosed with the disease. The symptoms of mesothelioma typically take 20 years to 50 years to appear after exposure. He will receive one week of treatment followed by a 21-day break, then another week of treatment.
More information about New York Mesothelioma.
Researchers Assess Safety and Effectiveness of New Mesothelioma Drug
Medical researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have treated the first patient with a new experimental vaccinia virus-based cancer therapy designed for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma or non-small cell lung cancer. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the chest cavity caused by exposure to asbestos.
Genelux Corp., a biopharmaceutical company that develops vaccinia virus-based cancer therapies, announced in a Feb. 6 press release the treatment of the first patient in the Phase I clinical trial designed to evaluate a drug known as GL-ONC1.
Vaccinia virus cancer therapies are part of an emerging area of medical research that utilizes modified viruses to target and destroy malignant cancer cells. Vaccinia virus produces a potent immune reaction to help destroy tumors. The virus was used extensively during the campaign to wipe out smallpox.
Through the current trial, the New York mesothelioma treatment researchers want to learn more about the safety and effectiveness of the new drug at different dosage levels on cancer patients with malignant pleural effusion. The accumulation of fluid between the thin layers of tissue lining the lung is known as pleural effusion. When the fluid contains cancer cells, it is known as malignant pleural effusion. A buildup of fluid is a complication that occurs in many patients who have pleural mesothelioma or lung cancer.
The clinical trial, which is recruiting patients, will assess the safety and tolerability of GL-ONC1 and the severity of side effects. The primary goal is to assess a safe dosage level. The trial may enroll up to 54 patients.
Dr. Valerie W. Rusch, a leading thoracic surgeon and expert on mesothelioma, is the lead researcher in the clinical trial sponsored by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
“We are very pleased that researchers at MSKCC have initiated this important trial, “Dr. Aladar A. Szalay, founder and CEO of Genelux Corp., said in a press release. “For the first time, this will allow us to examine the feasibility and effects of administering GL-ONC1 directly into the chest cavity to some of the most aggressive cancers of the thoracic cavity—including mesothelioma and non-small cell lung cancer.”
Szalay said the drug has been well-tolerated and shown promising results in early trials involving human patients against a number of solid tumor cancers.
Mary Hesdorffer, executive director of the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, an advocacy and support group, said novel therapeutic approaches based upon new scientific strategies may lead to more effective treatments and eventually a cure for mesothelioma.
Patient Has Lived Disease Free Since Diagnosis of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma
Doctors in Japan describe the unusual case of a long-term mesothelioma survivor who was treated with chemotherapy and hyperthermia.
In the Dec. 28 online issue of the Journal of Medical Case Reports, doctors at Gunma University School of Medicine in Japan detail the case of a 61-year-old man who has lived disease free for seven years after being diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the chest cavity caused by exposure to asbestos. The cancer typically has a high mortality rate.
The man was experiencing chest pain and had a history of exposure to asbestos for approximately five years. A CT scan showed a thickening of the pleural lining of his chest. It also revealed tumors had invaded the wall of patient’s chest. Doctors diagnosed the patient with stage 3 malignant pleural mesothelioma based on blood test results and an examination.
The patient was eligible for surgery, but refused to undergo surgery or receive radiation treatment. So doctors administered systemic chemotherapy with hyperthermia, which the medical center used as treatment for patients with inoperable lung cancer. The chemotherapy drugs consisted of cisplatin and irinotecan, an antitumor drug that interferes with how cancer cells multiply.
Hyperthermia is a type of cancer treatment in which body tissue is exposed to high temperatures of up to 113 degrees. According to the National Cancer Institute, high temperatures can damage and kill cancer cells, causing tumors to shrink, usually with minimal injury to normal tissues. Hyperthermia also may enhance the effectiveness of some anti-cancer drugs. It’s usually used in conjunction with other cancer treatments. The patient underwent hyperthermia treatment immediately after receiving the irinotecan drugs.
A month after the first cycle of mesothelioma treatment, the patient had a follow-up CT scan which showed that the thickening of the pleural lining had disappeared. He still has some fluid in his chest cavity, which is common for mesothelioma patients. The patient underwent three sessions of hyperthermia and a single course of chemotherapy. Another CT scan six years after the end of treatment revealed no evidence of a return of the cancer.
Patients diagnosed with mesothelioma typically have a poor prognosis because of the cancer’s resistance to conventional treatments. Many survive less than two years. As a result, medical researchers continue seeking more effective treatments for mesothelioma to extend the lives of patients and improve their quality of life.
The authors of the case report conclude that hyperthermia and chemotherapy may be a new and safe therapeutic option for treatment of pleural mesothelioma. They say that additional clinical studies of the combination of chemotherapy and hyperthermia are needed to further assess the effectiveness of the therapy.
Experimental Therapy Targets Mesothelioma Cancer Cells to Commit Suicide
A frontier in treatment of mesothelioma and other cancers is the use of a type of gene therapy that induces cancer cells to self-destruct.
In a recent article in the Journal of Genetic Syndromes and Gene Therapy, Dr. Marek Malecki of the University of Wisconsin and Phoenix Biomolecular Engineering Foundation reports that cancer suicide gene therapy while not without risks remains one of the most promising experimental therapies for treating many types of cancer. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the chest cavity caused by exposure to asbestos.
The success of the gene therapy hinges on delivering the suicide genes to the cancer cells. That is accomplished by identifying unique or overabundant proteins that serve as flags of the invading army of malignant cancer cells, giving away their location. Researchers have identified a number of biomarkers that may serve as chemical signals of malignant mesothelioma cells.
The identification of biomarkers allows doctors to deliver therapeutic drugs with more precision, avoiding collateral damage to healthy cells. Chemotherapy drugs by comparison affect all cells and have side effects including nausea and toxicity. Surgery to remove operable mesothelioma tumors inevitably removes healthy tissue as well as cancerous tissue and affects a patient’s quality of life.
That is why targeted therapies such as suicide gene therapy hold promise. To induce cancer cells to self-destruct, doctors inject a genetically modified virus into the tumor to deliver the suicide genes which prompts them to produce a special enzyme. The patient then receives another drug that transforms the enzyme into a toxic compound that prompts the rapidly dividing cancer cells to commit suicide.
Researchers have observed promising results of suicide gene therapy in initial clinical trials involving mesothelioma and other types of cancer. While the treatment has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it holds the potential to eliminate cancer cells without harming healthy cells, minimizing side effects suffered by patients.
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