BRISBANE scientists are set to begin world first human trials for what could be the biggest breakthrough in brain cancer treatment in decades.
The trials, due to begin next year, will see patients with reoccurring glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer, be treated with the clinical drug KB004 which has been successfully trialled on leukaemia suffers.
Due to the aggressive nature of brain cancer, the team at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute expect to see results within six months of starting the trials.
Each year in Australia 1000 people are diagnosed with brain cancer, which is lethal, claiming the lives of about 1000 people a year – on par with melanoma.
Within 14 months of diagnosis 40 per cent of patients die with the cancer recurring, on average, after seven months.
Only three to five per cent of patients live more than five years after diagnosis.
QIMR scientist Brett Stringer said he believed the drug would give patients a “second chance” after surgery, radiation and other traditional treatment failed.
“There’s tremendous promise … our hope is that we’ll give patients a second chance, something else that will give them some hope of surviving or doing better than the average,” Dr Stringer said.
The scientists have been studying the antibody that is in the drug for a decade with just one dosage of the drug eradicating brain cancer tumours in mice during animal trails.
Further animal trails on monkeys showed no adverse reactions to the drug helping to get it across the line for human testing after 10 years in the lab.
“These trials will primarily be designed to assess safety to demonstrate it’s safe to give the antibody to people and it’s proven that for leukaemia so we’re very optimistic it will prove safe in brain cancer. It’s also a dose escalation study, working out how much of this drug is safely given,” Dr Stringer said.
The protein – EphA3 – was discovered by QIMR Berghofer scientist Andrew Boyd in 1992 and has been used effectively to treat leukaemia patients.
Professor Boyd also created an antibody which has been shown to specifically target cancer cells which express EphA3 and have been found in brain cancer sufferers.
“Unlike in leukaemia where there are other therapies that are effective, with brain tumours we really don’t have anything at the moment that is effective,” Dr Boyd said.
American biotech company KaloBios Pharmaceuticals has adapted the antibody for human use into the KB004 clinical drug which has had successful Phase I trials with leukaemia patients and is into Phase II.
The brain cancer trails next year will be the first test of the drug on solid tumours not blood cancers.
The trials will be carried out on 20 people at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.
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