An Experimental cancer therapy for prostate cancer may be able to treat men without surgery and offer fewer side effects according to the results of a UK study published in the British Journal of Cancer* today (Wednesday).

A group of 172 men with prostate cancer that had not spread were treated under general anaesthetic with org.uk/help/default.asp?page=10870″ target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>High-Intensity-Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) - which uses sound waves to kill cancer cells. The trial took place at two centres - University College Hospital in London and the privately owned Princess Grace Hospital, also in London.

The men taking part in the trial were discharged on average five hours after receiving the HIFU treatment. Typically men with prostate cancer are treated with either surgery or radiotherapy. Surgery usually requires a two to three day inpatient stay and radiotherapy requires daily treatment as an outpatient for up to one month.

Of the initial group, 159 men were followed up a year later and 92 per cent did not have any recurrence of prostate cancer. Although this was not a comparative study, it would be expected that traditional treatments for early prostate cancer of surgery or radiotherapy would show a similar percentage of men showing no recurrence of their prostate cancer one year on.

Less than one percent - one man of the 159 followed up - had incontinence. And 30-40 per cent had impotence. None had any bowel problems.

One year following the traditional treatments of surgery and radiotherapy it would be expected that 5-20 per cent of patients would have incontinence and half have impotence. Radiotherapy can also cause side-effects such as diarrhoea, pain and bleeding in 5-20 per cent of people treated.

Dr Hashim Ahmed from UCL’s division of surgical and interventional science, who ran the trial, said: “This study suggests it’s possible that HIFU may one day play a role in treating men with early prostate cancer with fewer side effects. But we don’t yet know for sure if HIFU is more effective than traditional treatments so it will be important to carry out further studies involving a larger number of patients followed over a longer period of time to truly compare the long term effectiveness of this treatment.”

High-Intensity-Focused-Ultrasound or HIFU uses high frequency sound waves to heat up small accurately-targeted amounts of tissue to a temperature of 80-90-C. It can be used to treat the whole prostate, as in this study, or just the cancer areas.

Professor Peter Johnson, chief clinician at Cancer Research UK, said: “This technique needs careful evaluation to make sure that it can produce the same results as the proven treatments for early prostate cancer. If the treatment can be shown to have less side effects then that will be excellent news, but more research is needed to show this. Cancer Research UK is funding a trial to look at this question and we hope that further studies can be carried out to compare HIFU to standard treatments”.

Notes

Ahmed et al. High-Intensity-Focused Ultrasound in the treatment of primary prostate cancer: the first UK series. 1 July, 2009. British Journal of Cancer.

The senior investigator for this trial was Dr Mark Emberton, clinical director for cancer services at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH).

To search for UK cancer trials visit Cancer Research UK’s clinical trials database on our patient information website CancerHelp UK (http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk) or call Cancer Research UK’s specialist information nurses on freephone 0808 800 4040. Lines are open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

About HIFU

HIFU doesn’t pass through either solid bone or air so it can not treat every type of cancer. It has been tested on prostate cancer, kidney cancer, primary and secondary liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and bladder cancer. NICE guidelines in 2008 state that HIFU is only available through clinical trials, or provided the treatment data is put into a national urology registry.

UKHIFU Ltd is the exclusive UK distributor of the Sonablate ®500 HIFU device which is used at UCLH. The team of technologists at UKHIFU are available to answer technical treatment related questions from doctors, patients and other interested parties on 01761 415570 or info@ukhifu.co.uk, or go to the website for more information http://www.ukhifu.co.uk

About University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH)

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), situated in the West End of London, is one of the largest NHS trusts in the United Kingdom and provides first class acute and specialist services.

The new state-of-the-art University College Hospital which opened in 2005, is the focal point of the trust alongside five cutting-edge specialist hospitals.

The Trust is committed to research and development and forms part of UCL Partners which in March 2009 was officially designated as one of the UK’s first academic health science centres by the Department of Health.

Source
University College London

Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:COT), announced positive results today from combination agent animal experiments carried out at a prominent American cancer research facility. The results provide strong supportive evidence for the continued evaluation of COTI-2 in combination with conventional single agent therapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer:

- Tumor growth inhibition was significantly greater in the COTI-2 plus Doxil treated animals compared to the Doxil control group treated animals with:

– 12.5 mg/kg COTI-2 + 2 mg/kg Doxil causing 57% tumor growth inhibition

– 25 mg/kg COTI-2 + 2 mg/kg Doxil causing 54% tumor growth inhibition

– 2mg/kg Doxil control causing 29% tumor growth inhibition

- The effectiveness of the combination treatments with COTI-2 was apparent early in the study (day 4) and increased throughout the remainder of the study.

- Combination treatments were well tolerated.

“We are delighted to see that intravenous COTI-2 in combination with Doxil showed superior treatment results compared to Doxil alone as measured by significant tumor growth inhibition in an animal model of an aggressive human ovarian cancer (A2780). These results are significant because they add to the impressive data set of COTI-2, showing effectiveness, particularly in combination with first and second line agents, against multiple cancers and low toxicity,” said Dr. Wayne Danter, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (COTI).

“COTI will share this new data with parties who have expressed interest in a commercial partnership related to COTI-2,” said Mr. Michael Cloutier, Chief Executive Officer of COTI.

The Company intends to repeat this study using an oral formulation of COTI-2 to compare the effectiveness of oral COTI-2 in an animal model of human disease.

The Company is also advising of a correction to its June 10, 2009 press release, which announced a brokered private placement as this should have read a non-brokered private placement.

Source
Critical Outcome Technologies Inc. (COTI)

View drug information on Doxil.

For the first time, researchers have identified genetic variants commonly found in the population that can increase an individual’s risk of developing glioma, the most prevalent brain tumour. The findings are published today in the journal Nature Genetics.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research in the UK, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the US and elsewhere in Europe collaboratively studied the DNA sequences of thousands of people and found five genetic factors that were more common among people who had glioma.

“This is a major discovery,” commented article author and lead researcher Professor Richard Houlston, from the ICR and funded by the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK. “We’ve found the first real evidence that variations in the genes which many people carry can increase their risk of this deadly disease, glioma.”

People who have a relative diagnosed with brain cancer are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a brain tumour themselves. Researchers have previously identified a few rare genetic disorders that increase the risk of brain tumour - but these can only explain a small part of the inherited risk.

Genetic research over recent years has increasingly revealed that most cancers are not triggered by one or two genetic mutations, but instead the involvement of many genetic factors that each slightly increase the risk of cancer.

The scientists theorised that most of the genetic risks of brain tumours were likely due to inheriting several low-risk variants. Professor Houlston and his team compared the DNA of 1,878 glioma patients with 3,670 healthy individuals in the UK and US.

They found five common gene variants which contribute to the risk of people developing brain tumours, and confirmed the results with studies on an additional 2,545 patients and 2,953 controls from Europe.

Importantly, the scientists found that the more of these variants a person has, the higher their risk of developing glioma. People who have eight or more variants are three times more likely to develop glioma than the general population (humans have two copies of DNA, so can have up to ten of these variants).

They believe the five genetic factors found account for between seven and 14 per cent of the inherited risk, and that further research will identify more genetic variants.

“These findings have important implications as glioma is one of the most common tumours in middle-aged people, and the prognosis for sufferers is poor,” ICR Chief Executive Professor Peter Rigby says. “We would also hope that this research could ultimately help scientists develop new treatments that are targeted at patients’ specific molecular defects.”

The genetic variants identified shed new light on how glioma develops, helping scientists home in on new biological targets for treatments. Some of the regions found were associated with genes already linked to cancer development. In descending order of risk, the relevant variants were mapped to the following genes: CCDC26 on chromosome 8, TERT on chromosome 5, CDKN2A on chromosome 9, RTEL1 on chromosome 20 and PHLDB1 on chromosome 11.

“Compared with many other cancers, little is known about the lifestyle or genetic factors that influence the risk of developing brain tumours. This large new study is an important step forward as it unlocks some of the first genetic secrets behind the most common type of brain tumour, glioma,” Dr Lesley Walker, Director of Cancer Information at Cancer Research UK, said.

“Identifying these genetic variants will open up new avenues for scientists to explore, helping them to better understand how gliomas develop, identify who might be most at risk and ultimately find improved ways to diagnose and treat the disease.”

Note

- Gliomas account for about 80 per cent of primary malignant brain tumours (cancer that starts in the brain and has not spread from elsewhere), of which about 21,000 people are diagnosed each year in the US
- In the UK, about 4,550 people are diagnosed with brain tumours each year
- Only 14 per cent of people diagnosed with a brain tumour are alive after five years

The genes:

- CCDC26, on chromosome 8, modulates retinoic acid, which in turn increases programmed cell death in glioblastoma cells and reduces telomerase activity (see next)
- TERT, on chromosome 5, is essential for telomerase activity that preserves telomeres, which are found on the ends of chromosomes and prevent them from unravelling. TERT expression in tumours has been associated with tumour grade and prognosis
- CDKN2A, on chromosome 9, regulates p14, which activates the tumour-suppressor p53. It also regulates cyclin-dependent kinases vital to the cell cycle. At least one copy of the gene is deleted in half of brain tumours, and loss of CDKN2A expression is associated with poor prognosis
- RTEL1, on chromosome 20, maintains genomic stability. Its chromosomal address is amplified in 30 percent of gliomas
- PHLDB1, on chromosome 11, is commonly deleted in neuroblastoma but there is no evidence to date of a role for the gene in glioma

The Institute of Cancer Research

The Institute of Cancer Research is Europe’s leading cancer research centre with expert scientists working on cutting-edge research. In 2009, the ICR marks its 100 years of groundbreaking research into cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Scientists at the ICR have identified more cancer related genes than any other organisation in world. These discoveries are allowing for scientists to develop new cancer treatments. In December 2008, the ICR was ranked as the UK’s leading academic research centre by the Times Higher Education’s Table of Excellence, based on the results of the Higher Education Funding Council’s Research Assessment Exercise. The ICR is a charity that relies on voluntary income. It is one of the world’s most cost-effective major cancer research organisations with more than 95p in every £ directly supporting research. For more information visit http://www.icr.ac.uk

The Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over £600 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk

Source
Cancer Research UK