Anti-Tumour Drug More Potent With Light-Directe...( OSLO August 19 /- - PCI Bi...)

OSLO, August 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- PCI Biotech's Light-Activated Drug Delivery System Combines With Tumour-Targeting Drugs to Halt Tumour Growth at Low Doses

The effects of tumour-targeting drugs in mice are significantly enhanced by PCI Biotech's light-activated delivery system, a new study shows.

Researchers say this dual therapy approach could be employed to increase the effect and lower the side effects of anti-cancer drugs in humans.

The researchers tested the approach on mice with human non-pigmented melanoma skin cancer grafts, using a drug consisting of a very potent toxin fused to an antibody fragment that recognizes a protein commonly found on the cancer cells, but not on normal cells. This allowed them to target the tumour cells specifically. Whilst drug therapy alone did not significantly slow growth of the tumours, using PCI to enhance the delivery process substantially improved the results.

Thus, in mice treated with both PCI and the tumour-targeting drug, half of the animals did not reach the defined end point for tumour growth, even by the end of the study (after 110 days). By contrast, all the mice receiving the drug alone had reached the endpoint after just 40 days, which was not significantly different from what was seen in untreated control animals. There were also no adverse effects on the mice, indicating that PCI technology can allow the use of drug doses so low that unwanted side effects in humans could be substantially reduced.

The study, by researchers at the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo, Norway, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, is published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Pal K. Selbo, comments: "In this study we have used an advanced biotechnological drug that consists of a protein toxin fused to a cancer-targeting moiety. The combination of the tumour targeting
'/>"/>