The drug's lack of toxicity was a pleasant surprise. "The fact that we got through five doses with little or no toxicity is remarkable," says Dr. DeMoraes.
The scientists used a modified human recombinant version of Angiostatin in the trial. According to Dr. Capizzi, the study had two main questions to answer: safety, and along with that, the drug's pharmacokinetics, or how the body handles the drug; and the drug's pharmacodynamics, or the drug's effects on potential biochemical targets that affect blood supply to the tumor.
The scientists gained some valuable insights in the trial. "We learned that in some patients, a 10 minute treatment won't be enough," says Dr. Capizzi. "Given the safety, the laboratory tests that reflect how the body handles the drug suggest that continuous infusion with a pump may be necessary. Alternatively, multiple shots injected daily like insulin to diabetic patients may be effective.
Also, the drug might be able to be altered to enable it to persist in the bloodstream, like long-acting insulin." The trial is one of two Phase I studies of Angiostatin at Jefferson. A team led by Walter Curran, Jr., M.D., professor and chair of radiation oncology at Jefferson Medical College and clinical director of the Kimmel Cancer Center, and Adam Dicker, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of radiation oncology at Jefferson Medical College, currently is looking at Angiostatin combined with radiation in patients with advanced cancer.
Angiostatin is a protein and a natural tumor inhibitor discovered several years ago in mice in the laboratory of M. Judah Folkman, M.D., Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery at Harvard Medical School. The drug works by blocking the formation of blood vessels, based on Dr. Folkman's theory that cancers cannot grow or spread without a blood supply to feed them - a process known as angiogenesis. Angiostatin is part of a class of drugs called angiogenesis inhibitors.
Angiogenesis has b
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Contact: Steve Benowitz
steven.benowitz@mail.tju.edu
215-955-5291
Thomas Jefferson University
12-May-2001