Archive for the ‘Prostate Cancer’ Category

J&J’s Zytiga Helps Eliminate Early-Stage Prostate Cancer

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Posted 17 May 2012 — by James Street
Category Prostate Cancer, Zytiga
By Michelle Fay Cortez – May 17, 2012

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)’s Zytiga, approved last year to treat metastatic prostate cancer, helped eliminate tumors in high-risk patients whose malignancy hadn’t yet spread, a small study found.

The pill was given as an initial therapy before surgery to 58 patients with aggressive tumors that were confined to the prostate gland, a group typically treated with radiation. These patients are rarely cured by surgery and previous studies using older drugs failed to improve survival, said Mary-Ellen Taplin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

One-third of those on Zytiga for six months showed no cancer or only trace levels when the prostate gland was removed, said Taplin, who is the lead researcher. Fifteen percent of men on it for three months had a similar benefit. The drug, with $200 million in worldwide sales in 2011, may eventually generate $1 billion annually, said Larry Biegelsen, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities in New York, in a May 1 note to investors.

“What we’ve shown is that the concept is valid, that in some patients you can eliminate the cancer completely,” Taplin said in a telephone interview. “To really prove what the overall benefit is to a patient with this type of approach, you would have to do a very large trial.”

J&J rose less than 1 percent to $63.74 at 10:44 am. in New York. Dendreon Corp., which makes a rival medicine to Zytiga, dropped 8.2 percent to $7.91, after previously declining to $7.40, its lowest intraday price since Jan. 4.

$5,000 Cost

J&J’s once-a-day drug, which costs about $5,000 a month, targets a protein to block production of the androgen hormone that fuels prostate cancer growth. While other medications can stop androgen production in the testes and adrenal glands, Zytiga also shuts it down inside the tumor itself.

Participants in the study were also given the generic hormone therapy leuprolide and steroids.

Prostate cancer is the most-common tumor in men, according to the American Cancer Society. Fifteen percent of the 218,000 Americans diagnosed with it each year have it spread beyond the walnut-sized gland that lies between the bladder and urethra, according to the National Cancer Institute.

J&J, which helped fund the initial study, isn’t planning any additional research on the use of Zytiga as an initial therapy in men with high-risk, local disease that hasn’t spread, said Kellie McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation also helped fund the study, which was conducted by the Department of Defense-supported Prostate Cancer Clinical Trial Consortium.

Further Studies

Taplin, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said she is working on a trial that adds the experimental medication ARN-509 from closely held Aragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., based in San Diego, to the mixture of Zytiga and the steroid prednisone used in the current study. She is also exploring the use of Medivation Inc. (MDVN)’s prostate cancer drug MDV3100, which also blocks androgen production, before surgery in high-risk patients.

The findings released yesterday will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago on June 2. The results were released ahead of the event by the organizers to coincide with the publication of the study’s abstract.

Among the 29 men who received Zytiga for the entire six months, three had no signs of cancer once the prostate was eliminated, while seven had very low levels, Taplin said. One of the 27 men treated for three months had no cancer, and three had only a smattering of cancer cells, she said.

Results from a pivotal trial examining the use of Zytiga before chemotherapy in patients with prostate cancer that has spread will also be presented at the meeting. The studies may boost use of the drug in patients who aren’t formally approved to receive it, making it one of several medicines to accelerate J&J’s sales growth, Biegelsen, of Wells Fargo, wrote.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortez@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

Beehive remedy may slow prostate cancer

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Posted 09 May 2012 — by James Street
Category propolis, propolis, propolis, Prostate Cancer

U. CHICAGO (US) — An over-the-counter remedy derived from honeybee hives stalls the growth of prostate cancer cells in mice.

Caffeic acid phenethyl ester, or CAPE, is a compound isolated from honeybee hive propolis, the resin used by bees to patch up holes in hives.

Propolis has been used for centuries as a natural remedy for conditions ranging from sore throats and allergies to burns and cancer. But the compound has not gained acceptance in the clinic due to scientific questions about its effect on cells.

In a paper published in Cancer Prevention Research, researchers from the University of Chicago combined traditional cancer research methods with cutting-edge proteomics to find that CAPE arrests early-stage prostate cancer by shutting down the tumor cells’ system for detecting sources of nutrition.

“If you feed CAPE to mice daily, their tumors will stop growing. After several weeks, if you stop the treatment, the tumors will begin to grow again at their original pace,” says Richard B. Jones, assistant professor in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research and Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology and senior author of the study.

“So it doesn’t kill the cancer, but it basically will indefinitely stop prostate cancer proliferation.”

Natural remedies isolated from plant and animal products are often marketed as cure-alls for a variety of maladies, usually based on vague antioxidant and anti-inflammatory claims.

While substances such as ginseng or green tea have been occasionally tested in laboratories for their medicinal properties, scientific evidence is commonly lacking on the full biological effects of these over-the-counter compounds.

“It’s only recently that people have examined the mechanism by which some of these herbal remedies work,” Jones says. “Our knowledge about what these things are actually doing is a bit of a disconnected hodge-podge of tests and labs and conditions. In the end, you’re left with a broad, disconnected story about what exactly these things are doing and whether or not they would be useful for treating disease.”

To study the purported anti-cancer properties of CAPE, first author Chih-Pin Chuu (now at the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan) tested the compound on a series of cancer cell lines. Even at the low concentrations expected after oral administration, CAPE successfully slowed the proliferation of cultured cells isolated from human prostate tumors.

CAPE was also effective at slowing the growth of human prostate tumors grafted into mice. Six weeks of treatment with the compound decreased tumor volume growth rate by half, but when CAPE treatment was stopped, tumor growth resumed its prior rate. The results suggested that CAPE stopped cell division rather than killing cancerous cells.

To determine the cellular changes that mediated this effect, the researchers then used an innovative proteomics technique invented by Jones and colleagues called the “micro-western array.”

Western blots are a common laboratory tool used to measure the changes in protein levels and activity under different conditions. But whereas only one or a few proteins at a time can be monitored with Western blots, micro-western arrays allow researchers to survey hundreds of proteins at once from many samples.

Chuu, Jones, and their colleagues ran micro-western arrays to assess the impact of CAPE treatment on the proteins of cellular pathways involved in cell growth—experiments that would have been prohibitively expensive without the new technique.

“What this allowed us to do is screen about a hundred different proteins across a broad spectrum of signaling pathways that are associated with all sorts of different outcomes. You can pick up all the pathways that are affected and get a global landscape view, and that’s never been possible before,” Jones says.

“It would have taken hundreds of Westerns, hundreds of technicians, and a very large amount of money for antibodies.”

The micro-western array results allowed researchers to quickly build a new model of CAPE’s cellular effects, significantly expanding on previous work that studied the compound’s mechanisms.

Treatment with CAPE at the concentrations that arrested cancer cell growth suppressed the activity of proteins in the p70S6 kinase and Akt pathways, which are important sensors of sufficient nutrition that can trigger cell proliferation.

“It appears that CAPE basically stops the ability of prostate cancer cells to sense that there’s nutrition available,” Jones says. “They stop all of the molecular signatures that would suggest that nutrition exists, and the cells no longer have that proliferative response to nutrition.”

The ability of CAPE to freeze cancer cell proliferation could make it a promising co-treatment alongside chemotherapies intended to kill tumor cells. Jones cautioned that clinical trials would be necessary before CAPE could be proven effective and safe for this purpose in humans. But the CAPE experiments offer a precedent to unlock the biological mechanisms of other natural remedies as well, perhaps allowing these compounds to cross over to the clinic.

“A typical problem in bringing some of these herbal remedies into the clinic is that nobody knows how they act, nobody knows the mechanism, and therefore researchers are typically very hesitant to add them to any pharmaceutical treatment strategy,” Jones says.

“Now we’ll actually be able to systematically demonstrate the parts of cell physiology that are affected by these compounds.”

Research was supported by grants from the Cancer Research Foundation, American Cancer Society, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health, and National Science Council.

More news from the University of Chicago: http://news.uchicago.edu/

New Veridex Alliance Drives Study Of Circulating Tumor Cells In Men With Metastatic Prostate Cancer

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Posted 25 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category Circulating Tumor Cells, zoledronic acid

press release

April 23, 2012, 11:13 a.m. EDT

Research will employ the Veridex CELLSEARCH® CTC Test, the only 510(k)-cleared in vitro diagnostic test to capture and count CTCs –

RARITAN, N.J., April 23, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Veridex, LLC announced today that it has joined with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation in an educational alliance to encourage and facilitate research involving circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, as a potential biomarker in metastatic prostate cancer.

As part of this initiative, Veridex will support a prospective, single arm, open-label study designed to investigate the effect of zoledronic acid* on CTCs in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Dr. Ekkehardt Bismarck, M.D., of the EuromedClinic, Furth, Germany, one of the lead investigators, comments, “We hope to determine whether zoledronic acid may have an impact on CTC counts in the body. It is known that improvement of CTC counts has been associated with improved clinical outcomes.”

The study population will initially consist of a representative group of 60 CRPC patients with metastatic bone disease from five-to-10 study centers in Germany. The study will investigate the number of CTCs in study patients who receive zoledronic acid 4mg administered every four weeks for three months. The primary objective of the study is to determine the proportion of patients with decreased CTCs at 12 weeks after first infusion of zoledronic acid.

“Our alliance with Novartis further highlights the growing interest in CTCs as a potential biomarker in treating patients with metastatic prostate, breast and colorectal cancers,” said Robert McCormack, Ph.D. and Head of Technology Innovation at Veridex. “We look forward to further investigating the potential predictive benefit of CTCs in metastatic prostate cancer clinical studies as there are currently limited ways of assessing therapeutic benefit in this disease, especially when it has metastasized to the bone.”

“Our agreement with Novartis signifies our desire to collaborate with biopharmaceutical companies both internally and externally,” continued McCormack. “By leveraging our world-leading expertise in rare cell technology and developing current and future collaborations, we can drive to a more informed drug development model and help develop targeted treatments, making a significant difference for patients and their families.”

About Circulating Tumor CellsCirculating tumor cells are cancer cells that have detached from the tumor and are found at extremely low levels in the bloodstream. The potential clinical benefit of capturing and counting CTCs is being investigated as more research data is gathered about the potential utility of these markers in monitoring disease progression and potentially guiding personalized cancer therapy.

About the CELLSEARCH® CTC TestCELLSEARCH® is the first and only United States Food & Drug Administration 510(k)-cleared in vitro diagnostic (IVD) test to capture and count CTCs to determine the prognosis of patients with metastatic breast, colorectal or prostate cancer. The test can be administered at any time during the course of therapy as a routine blood test. It is used in combination with other tests and a clinician’s assessment, to provide a more complete picture of a patient’s prognosis.

About Veridex, LLCVeridex, LLC, a Johnson & Johnson company, is an organization dedicated to providing physicians with high-value diagnostic oncology products. Veridex IVD products may significantly benefit patients by helping physicians make more informed decisions that enable better patient care. Veridex Clinical Research Solutions provide tools and services that may be used for the selection, identification and enumeration of targeted rare cells in peripheral blood for the identification of biomarkers, aiding scientists in their search for new, targeted therapies. For more information, visit www.veridex.com .

*Editor’s Note: zoledronic acid is marketed by Novartis as ZOMETA®. For additional information on the safety and efficacy of ZOMETA and the full Prescribing Information, please visit www.zometa.com .

(This press release contains “forward-looking statements” as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Veridex, LLC and/or Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general industry conditions and competition; economic factors, such as interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent in new product development, including obtaining regulatory approvals; challenges to patents; changes in behavior and spending patterns or financial distress of purchasers of health care products and services; changes to governmental laws and regulations and domestic and foreign health care reforms; trends toward health care cost containment; and increased scrutiny of the health care industry by government agencies. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Exhibit 99 of Johnson & Johnson’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 1, 2012. Copies of this Form 10-K, as well as subsequent filings, are available online at www.sec.gov , www.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. Neither Veridex, LLC nor Johnson & Johnson undertake to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments.)

SOURCE Veridex, LLC

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Milk thistle hits prostate cancer two ways

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Posted 25 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category Silibinin, silibinin

April 23, 2012 in Cancer

Milk thistle hits prostate cancer two ways

(Medical Xpress) — Tumors are gluttons – in order to fuel their astounding growth rate they must gorge. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the journal PLoS One pinpoints the compounds derived from milk thistle that best kill cancer cells directly and restrict tumors’ ability to grow the new blood vessels they need to import this massive food supply.

 

There are four “isoforms” of silibinin. Gagan Deep, PhD, CU Cancer Center investigator and research assistant professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences tested the effectiveness of each.

In his study, mice who were orally fed Isosilybin B at 50 or 100 mg/kg body weight had much lower volumes than untreated mice and significantly lower tumor volumes than mice treated with the other three isoforms of silibinin. This Isosilybin B most effectively killed cancer cells directly.

But directly targeting cancer cells isn’t the only way to restrict tumor growth. Also important is a tumor’s ability to grow new that import food. The body lines blood vessels with endothelial cells and “while Isosilybin B was most effective towards prostate cancer cells it was least effective towards endothelial cells,” Deep says. “On the other hand, Silybin A showed highest efficacy towards endothelial cells.”

Now the group plans to test a mixture of these two strongest isoforms — Silybin A and Isosilybin B — expecting that B will target the tumor and A will target its ability to grow new blood vessels. “We hope to find a synergistic effect between these two, promising compounds,” Deep says.

Importantly, all isoforms of silibinin act against without harming healthy cells — “without adversely affecting the vessel-count in normal tissues,” Deep writes. In this (and other) studies, silibinin treatment resulted in no weight change compared to untreated mice, and there was no observed behavioral change, suggesting a complete lack of toxicity to healthy cells.

Provided by University of Colorado Denver

Are prostate cancer treatments being neglected by NICE?

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Posted 25 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category Abiraterone, Abiraterone, Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancerProstate cancer affects 250,000 men in Britain

Through writing this blog I have found myself at events at which I am asked to speak, at which I discover the world of cancer research or – as happened last Tuesday – at a House of Commons briefing. Thanks to an invitation from Owen Sharp, CEO of The Prostate Cancer Charity, a whole new world opened up to me.

Chaired by John Leech MP – who is a huge supporter of The Prostate Cancer Charity – the subject of this briefing was the drug Abiraterone.

As I am sure you are well aware, NICE’s draft decision to deny Abiraterone’s use by the NHS has caused much distress to those men whose cancer is at an advanced stage (ie it has spread to other parts of the body) and has stopped responding to hormone and chemotherapy treatments.

The argument put forward by NICE is that the pharmaceutical company is charging too much for a drug which will be used by too many men – and, therefore, should not be in the “end of life” category.

Apart from a chemotherapy drug called Cabazitaxel (which does not offer such a long extension of life and comes with side effects), these men are left with no alternative but palliative care. Abiraterone has been proven to extend the lives of men with prostate cancer by (on average) four months, pain-free and with renewed levels of energy. It is not a chemotherapy treatment and is taken as a pill four times a day, along with the steroid prednisolone.

The four men in the room – all with prostate cancer – who have been taking the drug (three who managed to obtain it by winning their appeals to the Strategic Health Authority and one who took part in a Royal Marsden trial) emphasised that the quality of their lives has been improved enormously – no pain, no fatigue. In fact, they felt their old selves once again and their PSA levels dropped almost overnight.

Like all drugs, Abiraterone will stop working eventually – for the actor Ian Liston, it stopped being effective after three and a half years, but he, like the others, described how being physically stronger (thanks to Abiraterone) will enable them to cope with future therapies. “The difference it makes to the quality of your life cannot be underestimated.”

Dr Simon Chowdhury – Consultant Oncologist at Guy’s, King’s and St. Thomas’ Hospitals in London – echoed the point I made in a previous blog post. He said that it is a “travesty that a drug developed in the UK is not now available to UK patients.” I would reiterate my comment that Abiraterone was developed by Cancer Research UK, some of whose funding comes from the very people who now need the drug for which they have paid towards its development. This cannot be right and, if NICE’s final decision is to refuse Abiraterone’s use by the NHS, it may well disillusion people to such an extent that they will think twice about making any further donations to cancer research.

We heard, too, from Hugh Gunn, a prostate cancer sufferer, who works to raise awareness of the disease and is the current Treasurer of the Prostate Cancer Support Federation. On being diagnosed in 2005 he was given 30 months to live, and was prescribed intermittent hormone therapy and finished chemotherapy in December last year when,”after feeling close to the end, I won my appeal to my Strategic Health Authority and have been able to enjoy a wonderful four months with my family. On Abiraterone, the pelvic pains, lack of appetite and loss of energy have all disappeared”.

However, Hugh pointed out that, when he approached his local Cancer Drugs Fund, he discovered the East Midlands CDF was the only one in the country not funding Abiraterone. Finally, the decision was overturned but, as he said, “it is very distressing to have to fight for something to save your life.” Some CDFs meet on a regular basis – Dr Chowdhury can rely on his Fund to make a decision in 48 hours – but in other areas, men are dying before the CDF even begin the discussion.

There was a distinct feeling among those gathered in Portcullis House that prostate cancer is the forgotten cancer and that there is sexual discrimination at work here. Particularly as, after a Freedom of Information request by The Prostate Cancer Charity, it was discovered that half of the CDFs insist on a choice being made between Abiraterone and Cabazitaxel. If Abiraterone does not work – and, like all drugs, it fails for some people – no further applications for the other drug are allowed. So you could be kippered either way. The consensus was that this rule would not be applied to drugs for breast cancer.

GPs did not escape unscathed either. It was suggested that far too many are still under the misconception that a man will die with, not from, prostate cancer. It is estimated that there are 250,000 men living with the disease and, all too often, it is already at an advanced stage when the diagnosis takes place.

NICE is due to make its final decision in June, and the Prostate Cancer Charity asks everyone to log onto their website and use the tool you will find there to alert your MP to fight on behalf of me: email NICE and the SMC in Scotland (which has already decided against recommending Abiraterone) and persuade them to change their minds; or have a go at Janssen’s (Abiraterone’s manufacturer) to lower its price.

As Dr Chowdhury said: “This is the ideal cancer drug – it does not cure but it is highly active, administrated orally, has no toxicity, is easy to monitor, easy to produce and relatively cheap.”

 

Unnecessary prostate cancer screening remains common

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Posted 25 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category Prostate Cancer, PSA testing, Watchful Waiting

Health
By Amanda Gardner, Health.com
updated 4:05 PM EDT, Tue April 24, 2012

PSA tests aren’t harmful, but studies have shown that positive results can lead to psychological distress and overtreatment.
PSA tests aren’t harmful, but studies have shown that positive results can lead to psychological distress and overtreatment.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Since 2008, experts have discouraged the use of PSA tests for men over 75
Tumors in this population tend to be slow-growing and asymptomatic
Yet data shows that 44% of men in that age bracket underwent PSA screening

(Health.com) — When billionaire investor Warren Buffett revealed last week that he has been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer, the reaction — including from Buffett himself — amounted to a collective shrug.

Buffett said his doctors told him the cancer is “not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way,” which led some observers to wonder why the 81-year-old had bothered to get screened for the disease in the first place.

Since 2008, an independent panel of experts that advises the federal government on preventive care has discouraged the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests — a type of blood test — to screen for cancer in men ages 75 and up. Tumors in this population tend to be slow-growing and asymptomatic, so early detection may carry more risks than benefits, the panel concluded.

Health.com: What men must know about PSA tests

Buffett’s diagnosis isn’t the only sign that this recommendation hasn’t sunk in. According to a research letter published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, PSA testing rates in men over age 75 have remained steady since the panel released its guidelines in 2008.

National survey data shows that 43% of men in that age bracket underwent PSA screening in 2005. In 2010, the researchers found, 44% reported having a PSA test done — a statistically negligible difference.

“Screening patterns couldn’t have been more similar before and after,” says lead researcher Scott E. Eggener, M.D., an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

PSA tests aren’t harmful in and of themselves, but studies have shown that positive results can lead to psychological distress, unnecessary biopsies, and overtreatment.

In older men, most early-stage tumors don’t require treatment because the men are likely to succumb to something else before the tumor becomes dangerous. Treatments, including surgery and radiation, may be riskier than continuing to monitor a tumor, since they carry a risk of incontinence and sexual dysfunction. (Buffet, for his part, has elected to undergo radiation.)

Health.com: Do you really need that medical test?

So why haven’t screening rates budged? The researchers can only speculate, but it could be that doctors and patients simply aren’t aware of the new guidelines. Another, more troubling possibility is that some prostate cancer specialists are recommending PSA tests to collect the reimbursement fee and generate business.

Eggener says neither of these scenarios is especially likely, however. The media coverage surrounding the 2008 guidelines has been hard to miss, he says, and although there may be a “subset” of specialists who are “consciously or unconsciously” overscreening and overtreating their patients, most PSA tests are ordered by primary care physicians with no financial stake in a diagnosis.

What’s more likely is that doctors and patients are accustomed to viewing screening as a good thing, and are unable or unwilling to let that belief go despite all the data to the contrary. “Physicians and patients latch onto the concept of screening for cancer and catching cancers early,” Eggener says.

The ongoing discussion surrounding the appropriate amount of cancer screening extends beyond prostate cancer. The panel that issued the 2008 guidelines, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), has spurred controversy in recent years by relaxing its screening recommendations for breast and cervical cancer as well.

Health.com: A guide to breast cancer screening

In 2011, the task force released draft guidelines that extended its recommendation against PSA testing to men of all ages. The current trend suggests the new guidelines may go unheeded, especially since not everyone agrees that PSA tests should be universally discouraged.

Even among men in the 75-and-over bracket, Eggener says, screening might make sense for certain patients. Older men in relatively poor health probably won’t benefit from early detection and treatment, he says, but that might not be true for a healthy and active 75-year-old who’s likely to live long enough for a tumor to spread.

“It’s very reasonable to check PSA levels, because it might save that guy’s life,” he says.

New Drug Could Slow Spread of Prostate Cancer

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Posted 21 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category KBU2046, Lung Metastases, Metastases, Prostate Cancer
 April 20, 2012

In mice, stops disease from spreading to nearby tissues and bone

Jessica Berman

Scientists report they have developed a drug that can prevent prostate cancer from spreading to nearby tissues and bone, increasing the chances of successful treatment.

The experimental compound doesn’t cure prostate cancer. It contains the disease so more traditional cancer therapies, such as surgery and radiation, have a chance to work.

Raymond Bergan is director of experimental therapeutics at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in Illinois, where the drug was developed.

Using breast cancer as an analogy, Bergan says it’s not the original cancer that’s lethal, but its spread or metastasis.

“The relevance of that is life versus death, literally,” he says. “If the cancer is localized, it’s very treatable, curable. If the cancer has spread throughout the body, it will take her life. We can treat it, but it will take her life.”

The new drug, called KBU2046, is a small molecule that attaches to tumor proteins involved in metastasis and disables them, so they can’t travel to distant organs. Bergan says it’s like turning off a switch that tells the cells to keep moving all the time.

Bergan and his colleagues transplanted aggressive human prostate cancer cells into mice, and then fed them the drug for five weeks. The compound prevented metastasis of the cancer to the lungs, a frequent site of tumor spread in men with prostate cancer.

Toxicity studies showed the compound is safe. Unlike other cancer therapies, which can cause significant side effects, investigators say the experimental drug spares healthy cells, causing minimal side effects.

Bergan is confident that KBU2046 will work to contain other cancers as well.

“We don’t think it’s specific to prostate cancer. We’ve done some early tests with other cancer cells in the laboratory and it appears to stop them from moving.”

Bergan stresses that drugs developed using animal models don’t always work in humans, and he’s looking forward to trials involving cancer patients.

Ultrasound beam can destroy prostate cancer without side effects, study finds

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Posted 20 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category Prostate Cancer, Ultrasound, Ultrasound -targeted microbubble-destruction (UTMD)

Published April 17, 2012

| NewsCore

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A high-powered ultrasound beam can destroy prostate cancer without causing the serious side effects that plague other treatments, a London study found.

Trials in London and Basingstoke, southeastern England, found it was possible to obliterate tumor cells without damaging delicate surrounding tissues.

Conventional surgery or radiotherapy for prostate cancer leaves half of men impotent and a fifth incontinent. The side effects are so common that many men with slow-growing tumors are advised not to have treatment.

Doctors used an experimental procedure High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) to destroy tumors during the trial.

None of the 41 men treated had incontinence and only 10 percent had impotence, the Lancet Oncology journal reported.

Dr. Hashim Ahmed, of University College London Hospital, said, “We’re optimistic that men diagnosed with prostate cancer may soon be able to undergo a day-case surgical procedure, which can be safely repeated once or twice, to treat their condition with very few side effects. That could mean a significant improvement in their quality of life.”

The doctors used high-resolution MRI scans of the men’s prostates to map the precise location of the tumors. They then used HIFU machines to focus ultrasound waves onto an area the size of a grain of rice.

This heats the cells, killing them without affecting nearby tissues.

 

Novel Prostate Nanomedicine Delivers High Drug Concentration Directly and Safely to Tumors in Phase I Trials

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Posted 09 Apr 2012 — by James Street
Category BIND-014, NanoTechnology, Physics and Engineering, Prostate Cancer

Highly-Targeted Nanoparticles Act as “Trojan Horse” to Deliver Powerful Chemotherapy Agent Without Affecting Healthy Cells

 

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Apr 04, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Nanomedicine research at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT funded by a $5 million grant from the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) has delivered the first nanomedicine shown to successfully target prostate cancer cells and deliver docetaxel chemotherapy in high concentrations in Phase I clinical trials. Docetaxel is used in prostate cancer patients who have failed hormone therapy and is currently delivered via infusion which floods the body and affects both cancerous and healthy cells. By using targeted nanoparticles to deliver the therapeutic, healthy cells are widely spared from undesired side effects of treatment.

 

Results from Phase I clinical trials of BIND-014 were published today in Science Translational Medicine. BIND Biosciences, the biopharmaceutical company that developed BIND-014, also presented the trials data today at the 2012 American Association of Cancer Research meeting in Chicago.

BIND-014 is a programmable nanomedicine that combines a targeting ligand and a therapeutic nanoparticle. BIND-014 contains docetaxel, a proven cancer drug which is approved in major cancer indications including breast, prostate and lung, encapsulated in FDA-approved biocompatible and biodegradable polymers. BIND-014 is targeted to prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA), a cell surface antigen abundantly expressed on the surface of cancer cells and on new blood vessels that feed a wide array of solid tumors. In preclinical cancer models, BIND-014 was shown to deliver ten-fold more docetaxel to tumors than an equivalent dose of conventional docetaxel. The increased accumulation of docetaxel at the site of disease translated to marked improvements in antitumor activity and tolerability.

PCF has funded research on PSMA, the attractor antigen or “sticky tape” that is targeted by BIND-014 nanoparticles since 1996. This research further discovered that PSMA is also found on the surfaces of neovasculature (new blood vessels) in the tumors of other cancers.

“The development of BIND-014 represents a unique public, private, and philanthropic funding effort to fast-forward and realize the potential of nanomedicines for the benefit of cancer patients,” said Jonathan W. Simons, MD, president and CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation which provided $5 million to the collaborative research project in 2007. “This is a tour de force of transdisciplinary collaboration–bioengineers, chemical engineers, nanotechnologists, oncologists, and prostate cancer biologists all came together to advance multiple components and concepts to the clinic. PCF’s funding leveraged an early and significant NCI nanotechnology investment in this prostate cancer therapeutics research. With this exemplary new work across institutional boundaries, BIND-014 represents an entirely new, programmable platform for targeted, cancer drug delivery–and it moved to the clinic in a strikingly short period of time.”

The idea to develop aptamer-targeted nanoparticles was first conceived in 2002 and forwarded by the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and Weill Cornell Medical College. Funding for the research and development program was provided by both public and private sources including the MIT Institute for Integrative Center for Cancer Research, the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, a prostate cancer SPORE Grant awarded to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the National Cancer Institute, the NCI Alliance in Nanotechnology and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

“These seminal data on BIND’s first clinical stage Accurin, BIND-014, demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to generate medicines with both targeted and programmable properties that can concentrate the therapeutic effect directly at the site of disease, potentially revolutionizing how complex diseases such as cancer are treated,” commented Omid Farokhzad, M.D., BIND Founder and Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School. “BIND’s data are a giant leap forward in achieving the true promise of nanomedicine by enabling the design of therapeutics with highly-differentiated efficacy and safety that go above and beyond the capabilities of traditional drug design through medicinal chemistry.”

“Previous attempts to develop targeted nanoparticles have not translated into clinical success because of the inherent difficulty of designing and scaling up a particle capable of targeting, long-circulation via immune-response evasion, and controlled drug release,” commented Robert Langer, Sc.D., BIND Founder and David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT. “BIND-014 is the first therapeutic of its kind to reach clinical evaluation and has demonstrated an increases of up to ten fold in drug concentration in tumors, which lead to substantially better efficacy and safety.”

With these findings, multiple Phase I/II trials targeting other cancers expressing PSMA can be accelerated safely.

About the Prostate Cancer Foundation

The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is the world’s leading philanthropic organization funding and accelerating research. Founded in 1993 by Michael Milken, PCF has raised more than $479 million and provided funding to over 1,600 research projects at nearly 200 institutions in 15 countries around the world. Since 2008, it has supported 98 Young Investigators in seven countries and launched 17 PCF team science Challenge Awards. PCF advocates for greater awareness of prostate cancer and more efficient investment of governmental research funds supporting transformational cancer research. Prostate Cancer Foundation efforts over 19 years have helped produce a 20-fold increase in government funding for prostate cancer and fast-forward research on four new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drugs for advanced prostate cancer in the past two years. More information about PCF can be found at pcf.org.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50229137&lang=en

SOURCE: Prostate Cancer Foundation

        Prostate Cancer Foundation
        Dan Zenka, APR
        Vice President, Communications
        310-570-4714
        dzenka@pcf.org
        or
        Cara Lasala
        Sr. Public Relations Specialist
        310-570-4727
        clasala@pcf.org

Aggressive Prostate Cancer Tumors Controlled By Botanical Formula

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Posted 31 Mar 2012 — by James Street
Category Herbs, PLAU/uPA gene, Prostate Cancer

Editor’s Choice
Academic Journal

A study by researchers at Indiana University, Methodist Research Institute that is published in The International Journal of Oncology reveals that a non-toxic, botanical orally administered formula controls aggressive human prostate tumors in mice.

The peer-reviewed pre-clinical in vivo study demonstrated that the prostate formula substantially suppresses tumor growth in aggressive, hormone-refractory (androgen-independent) human prostate cancer cells without any toxic side effects, even when administered at high doses. The formula is a combination of botanical extracts, phytonutrients, botanically enhanced medicinal mushrooms and antioxidants.

Inventor of the formula, Dr. Isaac Eliaz declared:

“This study is a milestone in the research of this formula, demonstrating its safety and effectiveness in treating human prostate cancer in an animal model. These positive results offer a significant contribution to prostate cancer research and add to the growing body of published data substantiating the role of natural compounds in the treatment of prostate cancer.”

This is the third study from a major university which has demonstrated the formula’s ability to suppress tumor growth and metastasis.

Leading researcher Dr. Daniel Silva remarks:

“Multiple studies have demonstrated that this prostate formula is a possible treatment for hormone-refractory prostate cancer.”

The study results showed that in comparison to controls, the formula managed to suppress tumor growth by 27% and substantially reduced the size of the tumor. It also blocked several genes, i.e. IGF2, NRNF2 and PLAU/uPA, which encourage cancer proliferation and metastasis. It furthermore increased CDKN1A expression, a gene that fights prostate cancer by blocking cellular mechanisms that promote cancer.

All of these characteristics prove that the formula has multiple anti-cancer mechanisms and genetic targets and confirm earlier published in vitro data that showed that the formula lowers the expression of PLAU/uPA genes in aggressive, hormone-independent prostate cancer cells.

The formula was previously studied at Columbia University and the Cancer Research Laboratory, Methodist Research Institute, at Indiana University Health, where the findings were also confirmed.

Written by Petra Rattue

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