Revolutionary Cancer Treatments Described at ASCO Conference

At the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) this week in Atlanta, researchers reported on some promising but highly experimental new ways to attack cancer. Prospective treatments ranged from nose drops that fight Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer common in AIDS patients, to tiny radioactive spheres that fight liver tumors while sparing the organ.

Treating Kaposi's Sarcoma with Nose Drops
Treating Secondary Liver Cancer with Radioactive Spheres
Treating Liver Cancer Through the Hepatic Artery

Treating Kaposi's Sarcoma with Nose Drops (Back to Top)
Parkash Gill and colleagues at the University of Southern California (USC; Los Angeles) are studying a treatment for Kaposi's sarcoma that combines two different approaches to cancer: one that stimulates the immune system to attack cancerous cells, and another that starves tumors by blocking them from growing blood vessels to feed themselves (angiogenesis). They used a drug made by Cytran Inc. (Seattle) called IM862, which combines two amino acids that block angiogenesis and at the same time stimulate the immune system.

IM862 is a small molecule that can be absorbed right through the mucus membranes, so Cytran formulated it as nose drops. Gill's team gave it to 44 patients at two sites in Los Angeles and Boston. In 36% of the patients, tumors either disappeared or shrink by at least 50%.

Gill thinks that the drug might eventually be added to standard chemotherapy to allow doctors to reduce the dose and possible side effects. He also suspects that the compound will have action in other types of tumors.

For more information: Parkash Gill, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1975 Zonal Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90033. Tel: 323-865-3912. Fax: 323-865-0060. Email: parkashg@hsc.usc.edu.

Treating Secondary Liver Cancer with Radioactive Spheres (Back to Top)
Guy van Hazel and colleagues at the University of Western Australia (Perth, Australia) tested tiny radioactive spheres in people whose colon cancer had spread to the liver. The SIR-Spheres, made by Paragon Medical Ltd., contain radioactive yttrium-90 and were injected into the hepatic artery, from which liver tumors get 80% of their blood. Healthy liver cells get most of their blood from elsewhere, so the idea was to hit tumor cells and spare healthy ones.

Van Hazel's team took 74 patients and either gave them standard chemotherapy for liver cancer, or chemotherapy plus the spheres. Although the effects were modest, they were encouraging, Van Hazel said. Approximately 14% of patients who received the spheres had their tumors shrink as opposed to 9% who got chemotherapy alone.

After two years, 39% of patients who got the spheres were still alive, as opposed to 29% of patients given standard therapy.

For more information: Guy van Hazel, Center for Applied Cancer Studies, University of Western Australia, P.O. Box F308, Perth, Australia 6841. Tel: +61 8-9380-3838. Fax: +61 8-9380-1380 .

Treating Liver Cancer Through the Hepatic Artery (Back to Top)
Nancy Kemeny of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York) conducted an experiment that dramatically extends the lives of patients whose cancer has spread to the liver. She found that infusing drugs directly into the hepatic artery had a much stronger effect than the standard approach, which is to put the drugs into the general circulation. Kemeny used a pump made by Arrow International (Reading, PA) that is surgically implanted into the patients.

After two years, 85% of patients who received the direct liver infusion were alive, and in 89%, the liver tumors had disappeared. This is compared to 69% of patients who received only the general treatment.

For more information: Nancy Kemeny, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Ave., New York, NY 10021. Tel: 212-639-8068.