Encouraging initial results, clinical trial report presented at national meeting

UPTON, NY -- More than 400,000 Americans with advanced-stage bone cancer may one day find non-sedating relief for their excruciating bone pain -- and possible treatment for their cancer -- in a promising therapy now being tested in a nationwide clinical trial.

The newly patented nuclear medicine therapy, based on a compound called tin-117m DTPA, was developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

"In preliminary clinical trials involving 47 patients, we showed that it totally or significantly eased the pain of more than 75 percent of patients, relief that lasted for up to a year and produced no side effects," said Brookhaven scientist Suresh Srivastava, co-developer of the therapy.

Srivastava presented those findings and an outlook for the therapy's future today at the American College of Nuclear Physicians' annual scientific meeting in Hawaii.

He also described the current nationwide clinical trial, designed to test the compound's potency in giving pain relief to patients whose cancer has spread to the bone.

Diatide Inc., a New Hampshire biotechnology company that has licensed the technology from BNL, is sponsoring and coordinating the multicenter trial, which will include 100 prostate cancer patients and 75 patients with other cancers. Patients are still being accepted at the participating hospitals, and may call Diatide at 603-621-7574 for more information.

"Based on this promising start, we're now investigating whether our approach may actually help shrink cancer lesions that have spread to the bone, in addition to relieving the pain they cause," Srivastava said. "And, we're pursuing preliminary research on its use in treating primary bone cancer and rheumatoid arthritis."

A New Option for Bone Cancer Pain
Bone cancer is a dreaded sec
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Contact: Kara Villamil
karav@bnl.gov
516-344-5658
DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
18-Feb-1999