What Is Radiotherapy? What Is Radiation Therapy?
Radiotherapy is also known as radiation therapy, radiation oncology and XRT. It is used for treating cancer, thyroid disorders and some blood disorders. Approximately 40% of cancer patients undergo some kind of radiotherapy. It involves the use of beams of high-energy X-rays or particles (radiation) to destroy cancer cells. Radiotherapy works by damaging the DNA inside the tumor cells, destroying their ability to reproduce.
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START Trial Will Show Whether Therapeutic Vaccine Stimuvax Has Potential To Extend Lung Cancer Survival Beyond Five Years
adverse events have emerged and there was no evidence of patients developing auto-immune reactions with prolonged use". He believes the phase III trial will yield much more valuable information about how the vaccine works and optimal timing of chemoradiotherapy. "There"s a lot going on in the micro-environment around the tumour that we"ve not been able to measure before," he explained. One theory is that vaccines help eradicate the last residual traces of a tumour persisting after chemo and radiotherapy and prevent recurrence. "Whatever, their precise mode of action, the bottom line is their outcome in terms of overall survival and there are high hopes that START will replicate the survival benefit seen in stage IIIB LR patients in the phase II trial." All patients will be asked to supply blood samples so researchers can try to identify which characteristics of patients with Stage III disease predict a good response and will serve as useful biomarkers for patient selection in the future. Blood samples will be stored so they can be examined retrospectively as new and better tests become available. "But these stage III patients will not be the only ones the vaccine might help if its truly effective," he stresses. "Further trials would go on to explore Stimuvax at different stages of NSCLC. Theoretically, it should work well at early disease stages where the tumour burden is least. But it"s rational to do the first phase III trial where we saw the most potential for benefit." Patients who join the START trial will get either Stimuvax or a placebo in the form of an outwardly identical-looking liposomal injection that lacks the active vaccine ingredient in a ratio of 2 to 1. They will then all be monitored closely until the study ends and beyond. There has been a great deal of negativism about therapeutic lung cancer vaccines because of disappointment in the past but Dr Butts believes START has the potential to be a landmark trial that will change clinical practice. "If we see the same kind of survival difference in START that we saw in the phase II trial it is going to change the way we treat lung cancer forever. The results will break new ground providing us with the first positive immunotherapy in a solid tumour we have ever had." It may not work for everyone but if it just helps a significant percentage it will have the potential to make a big impact globally with potential to extend thousands of lives, he added. "In the US there are 200,000 new cases of NSCLC diagnosed each year and 400,000 in Europe. One third of those will have Stage III disease." The hope is that Stimuvax and other therapeutic vaccines in phase III development will enable the body"s own immune system to prevent treated cancers recurring. Other lung cancer vaccines in development A different vaccine originating from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research is being developed by GSK. This is an antigen-specific cancer immunotherapeutic (ASCI) against the MAGE 3 tumour-specific protein which is seen in many cancers including around 40 per cent of NSCLCs, The vaccine is in a phase III trial programme - MAGRIT - recruiting patients with early stage - 1b or II - NSCLC who have successfully undergone surgery irrespective of whether or not they have also received chemotherapy. Phase II results showed that 30 per cent of patients receiving the MAGE 3 vaccine had relapsed at 28 months compared with 43 per cent of those receiving placebo. Transgene, a French biopharmaceutical company, is developing TG4010, a vaccine using the MUC-1 antigen delivered by a viral vector, aimed at patients diagnosed with advanced metastatic NSCLC, to be used alongside chemotherapy. In a phase II trial TG4010 extended median survival to 17.1 months in patients with normal levels of natural killer cells (lymphocytes) at baseline who received the vaccine compared to 11.3 months among those who did not. The company now plans to talk to European and US regulators about taking the vaccine into a phase III trial with larger patient numbers. "It would be a huge achievement if any of the phase III trials are positive" stressed Dr Butts. "It will mean we can offer patients something after chemoradiotherapy, that doesn"t have much in the way of side effects, or require daily or even weekly administration, but which might greatly improve their chances of long-term survival." Of course, he stresses, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the sooner enough patients have entered the trials the sooner they can be completed and supply the answers. All eligible patients should be given the opportunity to participate in a trial, he believes. Patients who believe they qualify for entry to START or MAGRIT should discuss the matter with their specialist who can then refer them to the nearest trial centre. More information and a list of recruiting sites is available at: -- First link. -- Second link. References: Butts C, Murray N, Maksymiuk A et al. Randomised phase IIb trial of BLP25 liposome vaccine in stage IIIb and IV non-small-cell lung cancer. J Clin Oncol 2005; 23: 6674-6681. Butts C, Maksymiuk A, Goss G et al. A multi-centre phase IIB randomised controlled study of BLP25 liposome vaccine (L-BLP25 or Stimuvax) for active specific immunotherapy of NSCLC: updated survival analysis. J Thorac Oncol 2007; 2(8) suppl 4 (S332-333). Written by - Olwen Glynn Owen Glynnowen(at)macline.co.uk Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News TodayPages: 1 [2]