Enzyme Treatment Shows Promise for Liver Cancer

A phase II trial conducted by Italian researchers has demonstrated that some patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) experienced complete remission of their cancer following three-month treatment with an enzyme called arginine deiminase (ADI).

ADI degrades the amino acid arginine, which circulates in the blood and is required by certain tumors for their growth. HCC is a tumor for which there is no effective treatment, The 19 patients in the study has only a few months to live when they began the trial. Of these, two are in complete remission with no clinical evidence of disease, seven have experienced more than a 50% remission of their tumor, and seven had stable disease with no increase in tumor size. In the six months since treatment ended, 14 continue to benefit from the treatment. Their average survival was greater than five times the historical life expectancy for comparable patients. Phase 3 testing of ADI in a larger patient population with HCC is scheduled to begin in September in Europe.

"We have seen major decreases in the tumor masses and a dramatic increase in the quality of life of our patients,” said clinical investigator Francesco Izzo, M.D., Pascale National Cancer Institutes, Naples (Italy). "The treatment with ADI is no more painful than a vaccination and any toxic effects are very mild and essentially nonsignificant.”

Doctors in a US trial have also had success with ADI. The drug was developed by scientists at Phoenix Pharmacologics (Lexington, KY, USA) who have experience in recombinant protein production.




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