Radiation and Gene Therapy Promising for Lung Cancer

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.”



Related Links:
Introgen