{"id":17364,"date":"2014-04-07T12:05:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T16:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=17364"},"modified":"2016-06-11T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T16:52:11","slug":"clinical-trial-to-test-advanced-lung-cancer-immunotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=17364","title":{"rendered":"Clinical Trial to Test Advanced Lung Cancer Immunotherapy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lung<\/a>
(National Cancer Institute)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

7 April 2014. EMD Serono<\/a>, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck in Rockland, Massachusetts, is beginning a clinical trial to test a vaccine-type therapy for advanced cases of non-small cell lung cancer. The late-stage trial<\/a> is assessing the ability of tecemotide, an experimental drug designed to trigger an immune response against cancer cells, to extend survival time of patients who already received concurrent chemo- and radiation therapy, but whose lung cancer cannot be removed by surgery.<\/p>\n

Non-small cell lung cancer<\/a> accounts for 85 to 90 percent of all lung cancer cases; the name refers to the size of the cancer cell when viewed under a microscope. This category of lung cancer has various sub-types, which are similar in treatment and prognosis.<\/p>\n

Tecemotide<\/a> is formulated as a vaccine to stimulate T-cells in the body’s immune system for controlling the growth and spread of cancer cells. It is made up of proteins that seek out the antigen MUC1<\/a>, which appears on the surface of several types of cancer cells, including those of non-small cell lung cancer. Tecemotide was first developed by the biotechnology company Oncothyreon Inc.<\/a> in Seattle, and licensed to Merck and EMD Serono for clinical trials and\u00a0commercialization.<\/p>\n

An earlier trial<\/a> of tecemotide with patients having inoperable non-small cell lung cancer showed the therapy was about as successful in extending overall survival time as patients receiving a placebo. Patients in this first trial already received both chemo- and radiation therapy treatments, but the results<\/a> showed longer survival times for those receiving tecemotide after concurrent<\/em> chemo- and radiation therapy — median of 30.8 months — compared to the placebo (20.6 months). Patients receiving tecemotide after sequential<\/em> chemo- and radiation therapies survived about as long as the patients receiving a placebo.<\/p>\n

The new trial has a similar design as the earlier study, but in this case participants first receive only concurrent chemo- and radiation therapies, with the group of 1,000 non-small cell lung cancer patients divided about equally between those then receiving tecemotide or a placebo. Patients are being recruited in both the U.S. and Europe. A clinical study<\/a> similar to the original trial is recruiting some 500 patients in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n