Once Promising Mesothelioma Treatment Fails to Show Results in Clinical Trial
Patients, physicians and researchers in the mesothelioma community suffered a serious setback last week when Merck & Co. announced they have terminated the Phase III clinical trial for vorinostat. The researchers found there was no improvement in survival in patients with advanced malignant pleural mesothelioma receiving the second-line treatment that had previously been treated with at least one chemotherapy regimen.
In light of the disappointing news, however, the principal investigator, Lee Krug, MD, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, vowed to extend their “best efforts to continue to find new therapies for this dreadful disease.”
Vorinostat, currently used to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), a blood cancer, was being studied in previously treated pleural mesothelioma patients. The drug was shown to increase apoptosis induced by the combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed. In a previous small clinical trial, 5 of 13 patients “experienced stable disease lasting 4 to 13 months.”
The phase III clinical trial was one of the largest conducted for mesothelioma patients. The study was conducted in 660 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma whose cancer had continued to progress after either one or two previous cycles of chemotherapy, including pemetrexed (Alimta) and cisplatin.
Vorinostat is one of the newest biologic drugs, made from a living organism, that targets tumor growth factors or proteins which promote malignant cell growth ultimately supplying blood and oxygen to the growing tumor.
Mesothelioma is a rare, aggressive form of cancer primarily caused by exposure to airborne asbestos fibers. Close to 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with the cancer yearly. There is no known cure for the disease.
The results of the trial were presented by Krug at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress.
