The other study, CONFIRM 2, is for advanced colorectal cancer patients who have already undergone treatment with the chemotherapy combination of 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin and irinotecan but whose cancer has progressed. The study will look at the potential survival benefit of PTK/ZK combined with the chemotherapy agents 5-flurouracil, leucovorin and oxaliplatin, as compared to the chemotherapy drugs alone.
PTK/ZK is a member of one of the newest classes of cancer drugs in development, those that target specific molecules in cells. The idea behind these targeted therapies is to attack what goes awry in cancer cells and spare the healthy cells as much as possible.
"Cancers can't make their own blood vessels. To grow larger and spread, they need to trick the body into growing these new vessels," Hecht said. "These vessels make an attractive target for therapy because an adult rarely needs to grow blood vessels unless they're healing a wound. So blocking new blood vessel growth as a way to treat cancer has the potential for relatively few side effects."
Advanced colorectal cancer is usually fatal, Hecht said, so it is vital that oncologists find new and better ways to treat the disease. Colorectal cancer will strike about 150,000 Americans this year alone and kill more than 58,000 people. It is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, after lung cancer.
"The treatments we have now for advan
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Contact: Kim Irwin
kirwin@mednet.ucla.edu
310-206-2805
University of California - Los Angeles
12-Nov-2003