Found this on the yahoo XNVA thread. Doesn't say much, except that the Transmid trial has started:
THURSDAY July 08, 2004
Hope glimmers in new brain cancer treatment
By Carey Hamilton
The Salt Lake Tribune
A new drug treatment being pioneered at the Huntsman Cancer Institute could provide hope for brain cancer patients who otherwise would have little chance of surviving more than a year.
The study of the drug TransMID will enroll up to 323 patients at health centers worldwide with progressive or recurrent Glioblastoma Multiforme -- the most common and devastating brain cancer in adults -- who have not been cured by conventional therapy.
The first patient in the study -- a 61-year-old northern California man expected to live only a couple of months -- received treatment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute last weekend. Ron Livermore flew home to the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this week and is expected to return to Salt Lake City for one additional treatment at the end of July.
The medication being used in the trial is a diphtheria toxin. The way doctors inject it is what makes it a potentially important advancement in the treatment of brain tumors. Rather than an oral or injected chemotherapy treatment, which can spread through a patient's body and harm healthy cells, doctors administer the toxin into the tumor through a straw-shaped catheter. The toxin binds to the rapidly dividing cells of the brain tumor but doesn't interfere with healthy brain cells, leaving little damage to surrounding tissue.
Battling his third brain tumor in less than two years, Livermore was most recently diagnosed with a tennis ball-sized inoperable tumor, which causes him weakness on his left side and problems with his speech. His wife, Donna Livermore, said the couple was excited to hear about the treatment.
"It's kind of a last chance, so [Ron] just went for it," she said. "I'm sure he was apprehensive about having a toxin put into his brain, but it sounded like something that would work because they go right to the site."
TransMID is manufactured by Xenova Group plc of Britain, which is sponsoring the study.
"Patients don't really seem to notice too much. There aren't that many side effects," said Randy Jensen, Livermore's neurosurgeon and assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine. "There aren't many systemic effects because it remains in the brain."
The study is in its third phase after showing promise in two smaller studies. In phase two, which involved 44 patients, researchers found a 50 percent or greater reduction in tumor volume in 35 percent of patients.
In that study, median survival for patients was 37 weeks, compared to an average life expectancy of 26 weeks for patients being treated with traditional care.
"This toxin . . . has shown unprecedented results in phase one and two trials with tumors that are notoriously difficult to treat," said William Broaddus, associate professor of neurosurgery at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System and chair of the executive steering committee for the latest trial.
"The novel therapeutic agent and the innovative delivery strategy represent significant milestones in our search to find better ways of treating these devastating tumors," he said.
The U. has enrolled a second patient, who is scheduled to receive the first treatment next week. If the trial is successful, the procedure eventually could be used to help patients with neurological disorders.
"We're using it for brain tumors, but some day with this technique you could deliver drugs or stem cells for Parkinson's [disease] or Alzheimer's [disease]," Jensen said. "There's a lot of hope for other diseases using this same type of technique."
chamilton@sltrib.com |
