United States: Based on a phase 2 clinical trial, a novel combination medication appears to increase the response rate for patients with liver cancer undergoing immunotherapy.
Targeting Cancer Evasion
According to experts, bavituximab, a drug used in combination remedy, neutralizes phosphatidylserine, a adipose patch used by cancer cells to shirk vulnerable cell attack and identification. Hepatocellular melanoma( HCC), the most current kind of liver cancer, is the ideal of the combination remedy.
For a long time, sorafenib was the only medication available for treating HCC tumors that were too large to be surgically removed. Sorafenib only temporarily prolongs lives by slowing the formation of blood vessels that feed tumors.
Focus on Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Immunotherapies have been a viable therapy option for HCC in more recent times. Unfortunately, the majority of patients do not react to these medications when they are administered alone, and the risk of significant and occasionally fatal adverse effects increased when multiple immunotherapies were combined.
Clinical Trial Results
28 patients with HCC were already included in the new clinical study and treated with a combination of pembrolizumab and bavituximab. The patients’ progress was monitored for an average of almost 29 months. Imaging scans performed at the conclusion of the experiment revealed no signs of liver cancer in two individuals who had a full response.
Positive Treatment Outcomes
According to the data, 32% of patients had their progression stopped by the combination treatment. They explained that , the combination therapy shrank the tumors of individuals who reacted to it for an average of 13 months. At study’s conclusion, four individuals were still responding to combination treatment.
Implications for Cancer Therapy
Furthermore, researchers found that adding bavituximab did not seem to worsen adverse effects already present with pembrolizumab. Based on these findings, physicians hypothesized that including bavituximab into immunotherapy regimens for other tumors would increase their efficacy without endangering patients further.
These new studies has been published in the journal Nature Communications.