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Biotech / Medical : Techniclone (TCLN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob L who wrote (2673)	10/25/1998 4:02:00 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3702

Dr Saven of Scripps Clinic told me last February that Rituxan and intermediate grade wouldn't be good despite strong CD20 expression because the mechanism of action was not simply identifying the cancer cells for immune system destruction of them. This was was the intent of monoclonal antibodies. He said Rituxan works on CD20 low grade for reasons which were unclear. Bexxar on the other hand, doesn't depend on identifying the cancer cells for the immune system to kill, it simply identifies them by hanging on with a nuclear bomb attached. So the cancer cell gets nuked directly. No ifs, buts or maybes. No third party needed. Of course the innocent bystanders get nuked too, but as with all radiation treatment, the collateral damage is usually less than the cancer destruction. Unfortunately, too often, before the cancer cells are all dead, the collateral damage is too high and kills the person first. And being a statistical game, not all the cancer cells will be attached to an I131 and even if they are, some of them won't be 'hit' by the resulting nuclear explosion. Hence the failure rate in treatment. So putting Rituxan and Bexxar in the same CD20 box isn't quite right. I don't see how Bexxar can avoid working in strongly expressed CD20 intermediate and high grade cases where external beam radiation works. Maybe some cancers are radiation hardened, but they will be resistant to Oncolym, external beam AND Bexxar. The results on Surgery/Rituxan/CHOP/involved field radiation for intermediate grade would be interesting. Are there any published yet? Maurice