Cancer treatment results mixed

Press, 13 January 1987, Page 22

Cancer treatment results mixed

NZPA-AP Chicago High doses of an expert* mental cancer treatment reduced the size of tumours in three of six patients with advanced skin malignancies but failed to help four patients with other types of cancer, researchers say. An editorial accompanying a report on the treatment in the “Journal of the American Medical Association” questioned whether the treatment’s severe toxic side effects and astronomical costs are worth its benefits, however.

Researchers led by Dr Michael Lotze of the National Cancer Institute reported on new tests of interieukin-2, a naturally occurring messenger protein that the immune system uses to direct its attack on disease.

Once extremely rare, the substance now can be readily manufactured using genetically engineered bacteria. But it remains highly experimental and is being tested on only small numbers of patients.

Dr Lotze and his colleagues reported that three of six patients with advanced melanoma, or skin cancer, had a 50 per

cent or greater shrinkage in the size of their tumours after high-dose injections of interieukin-2 over four to 21 days. They said no tumour shrinkage occurred in seven other patients: three with skin cancer, three with colon cancer that had spread, and one with ovarian cancer that had spread. The five patients still living in late November continued to be watched, the doctors said. After the study’s manuscript was prepared, one of an additional five patients tested showed complete remission of cancer that had spread from the kidneys to the lungs, the report said. The other four patients showed “partial responses” at best, it said.

There was no further description of those patients.

In the first 10 patients, the doctors said highly toxic side effects previously reported occurred again, despite efforts to avert them by injecting the hormone into the peritoneum, a membrane lining the abdomen, rather than into a vein.

- Eight of the patients became sick enough from the treatment to require

hospitalisation in intensive care, the doctors reported. The drug produces side, effects ranging from severe fluid retention and serious drops in blood pressure to fever and vomiting.

An editorial accompanying the study cautioned against considering interieukin-2 a “breakthrough” drug because its drawbacks make it unacceptable for general use, despite its proven ability to shrink tumours. “In contrast to interferon therapy (another experimental cancer treatment), which is reasonably tolerable for most patients, treatment with IL-2 is an awesome experience,” said the editorial, written by Dr Charles Moertel of the Mayo Clinic in , Rochester, Minnesota.