Radiation and Gene Therapy Promising for Lung Cancer

In a phase II trial, conventional radiation therapy along with gene-therapy injections caused a complete or partial response in 12 of 19 (63%) patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer who were not eligible for surgery or chemotherapy. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, in San Francisco (CA, USA).

The responses in the trial were pathologically confirmed by biopsies that were negative for cancer cells. Historically, the pathologic response rate in locally advanced lung cancer following radiotherapy given alone is less than 18%. The drug used in the trial, an adenoviral vector with the p53 gene, called INGN 201, was developed by Introgen Therapeutics, Inc. (Austin, TX, USA).

"This study was designed to efficiently determine how much additional benefit it might be afforded to standard radiotherapy when a novel gene therapy was added,” explained James A. Merritt, MD., vice president of clinical affairs for Introgen. "We determined that the two treatments can be safely and effectively combined, and clinical activity appears to be enhanced.”



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