A team of University of Iowa Health Care researchers has launched an important clinical trial of a novel therapy that may eventually lead to new treatment for men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Thomas Griffith, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Urology and a co-lead investigator for the study, offers these comments:
What makes this investigational technique so novel?
In this particular situation, what we have developed is a unique gene transfer technique, where we have engineered a virus, and we're using the same virus that causes the common cold. And in this particular case, we've designed it so that it's carrying the gene for a protein that selectively kills tumor cells but leaves normal or non-cancerous cells unaffected. The vector has also been disabled so that it cannot spread systemically through virile replication.
Which patients may benefit from this approach?
We're presently testing our therapy on patients with locally confined prostate cancer, who still have their prostates and are scheduled for prostatectomy. This will allow us to examine the safety profile of the therapy, as well as examine some parameters to determine its ethnicity. We will then use the results of this initial study to design future trials in patients with more advanced prostate cancer.
What have the preliminary studies shown thus far?
So far all of the patients have tolerated the injection procedure and there have been no complications with the planned surgery. We are in the process of evaluating some of the aspects of ethnicity. Unfortunately it's too early to make any conclusion from those tests at this time.
Why is this research trial so important? Does it have possible applications to other forms of cancer?
We feel that this trial is very important from a number of standpoints.
First, it's allowing us to test the ethnicity of our technology and to determine how the patients are going to be able to tolerate it for future studies.
Second, we feel that this could potentially turn into an alternative therapy for patients with locally confined disease who would chose not to undergo surgery as a treatment option.
Lastly, we feel that this is important because we believe that this could eventually turn into a therapeutic alternative for patients who have much more advanced disease, where surgery is not an option and other therapies have less signs of benefit.
So it sounds like it could have possible applications with other forms of cancers, not just with prostate cancer?
Exactly. The true beauty of our technology and our therapeutics is it's not specific for prostate cancer. We can easily see how this can be applied to other cancers; such as breast cancer, melanoma, or colon cancer. The best way I can describe this is if a patient has a cancer that can be accessed by a needle, such as what's done by a biopsy, we could directly inject this into the tumor site. And as I said, this is not specific for prostate cancer or any other cancer in that regard. This could be applied to pretty much any kind of cancer out there.
Where was this potential new treatment developed?
The vector technology was developed here at The University of Iowa in my laboratory. The initial studies began six years ago, so getting this into the clinic has been a long road. We have been fortunate to receive support from a number of local sources, such as the Carver Charitable Trust https://www.carvertrust.org/ and the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, as well as national agencies like the Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health, to help us develop and test the therapeutics so that we can ultimately test this in the clinic.
How can people find out if they might be eligible to participate in this study?
The current trial is designed to test our vector in men with locally confined prostate cancer and who are scheduled for surgical removal of their prostate. Further studies could be designed to test this in patients with advanced disease after they have had surgery or after they have received other treatment modalities. |
