That observation led the researchers to look at Oltipraz anti-angiogenesis ability. They started with studies using microarray technology, which can simultaneously analyze the activity of thousands of genes. This revealed that Oltipraz may have the ability to affect blood vessel growth.
A series of experiments in laboratory rodents then demonstrated that Oltipraz is an anti-angiogenic agent comparable in potency to two drugs currently being tested in clinical trials. One is SU 5416, now being tested at Fox Chase for patients with melanoma or sarcoma.
Based on our work with animal tumor models, Oltipraz may not only be a cancer prevention agent but may also be effective in treating patients with advanced stage cancers and metastases, Clapper explains. Were still doing pre-clinical testing, she emphasized.
Cephalon is screening the drug in mice with several kinds of tumors to gain additional data about the most appropriate cancer sites for a future treatment trial of Oltipraz in humans. In addition to support from Cephalon and the Cancer Research Foundation of America, a National Institutes of Health grant and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appropriation are helping fund research on Oltipraz anti-angiogenic activity.
Although still in clinical development for its broad-based chemoprevention activity, Oltipraz could turn out to be a doubly potent weapon against cancereither helping prevent it in high-risk people or shrinking cancerous tumors by depriving them of their blood supply.
This wouldnt be the first time Oltipraz showed promise beyond its established use, however. It was first approved as an anti-schistosomal treatment, to eliminate parasites known a
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Contact: Karen Carter Mallet
k_carter@fccc.edu
215-728-2700
Fox Chase Cancer Center
4-Jan-2002