Combined therapy makes headway for liver cancer

Medical Xpress / UT Southwestern Medical Center / Nature Communications ^ | May 3, 2024 | David Hsiehchen et al

[ConservativeMind]

A drug that targets a protein known as phosphatidylserine boosted the response rate for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients receiving immunotherapy without compromising their safety, according to results of a clinical trial.

The findings show the potential benefits of augmenting immunotherapy for this and other forms of cancer.

Several years ago, researchers discovered that phosphatidylserine, a fatty substance called a phospholipid sometimes present on the surface of cancer cells, appeared to interact with immune cells to prevent them from attacking tumors. An antibody drug called bavituximab that neutralizes phosphatidylserine showed no effect on tumor response, progression, or survival when administered alone across multiple cancer types or when combined with sorafenib in HCC. But bavituximab had never been tested in combination with immunotherapy agents.

Toward that end, Dr. Hsieh and his colleagues recruited 28 patients with HCC. These patients, whose cancers couldn't be surgically removed, received imaging of their tumors at the start of the study. They then received a combination of bavituximab and pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug approved in 2016 to treat various cancers.

While receiving both therapies, these patients had periodic imaging to determine whether their tumors shrank, stopped growing, or continued to grow and multiply. The researchers followed these patients for an average of 28.5 months.

Although previous clinical trials had shown that only about 16% of HCC patients responded to pembrolizumab alone, nine patients, or 32%, responded to the combined therapy. Two of them had a complete response, with no evidence of disease on imaging at the end of the trial. The combined therapy halted progression in another 32% of patients. For responders, the two drugs continued to shrink their tumors for a median time of 13.3 months, and four patients were still responding when the study ended.

Researchers noted that adding bavituximab did not increase side effects.

[ConservativeMind]

This new combination did far better than either treatment, alone:

“Although previous clinical trials had shown that only about 16% of HCC patients responded to pembrolizumab alone, nine patients, or 32%, responded to the combined therapy. Two of them had a complete response, with no evidence of disease on imaging at the end of the trial. The combined therapy halted progression in another 32% of patients. For responders, the two drugs continued to shrink their tumors for a median time of 13.3 months, and four patients were still responding when the study ended.”

[ConservativeMind]

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[packagingguy]

“protein known as phosphatidylserine”

Phosphatidylserine is a type of amino acid, not a protein. We just discussed a cement based on this last week in a meeting.