NEW CLINICAL TRIAL OPEN
A NEW TRIAL IS OPEN! This week the Northern California Melanoma Center started enrolling patients in a new clinical trial for melanoma. The study is for patients with melanoma whose disease has progressed following initial (First-Line) therapy for metastatic disease.
Patients who meet eligibility criteria and agree to participate undergo a screening process and then are randomized on a 2:1 basis to receive the study drug, OncoVEX or GM-CSF (granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor), a drug that boosts immune responses. OncoVEX is a virus that is injected into tumor tissue where it enters the malignant cells and kills them while not harming normal cells. It also is engineered to release GM-CSF at the tumor site, with the goal of boosting the patient's immune responses to their own tumor, thereby helping to kill cancer cells in distant metastases.
The initial data from the Phase I and II trials has been promising. Additionally, this type of treatment is less toxic and has fewer serious side effects than other treatments that are often used in this setting such as chemotherapy, combinations, or other biologic therapy, such as IL-2 (interleukin-2).
To read a description of the trial, as well as inclusion criteria, click here: http://www.melanomacenter.com/whatis/mel_prots_oncovex.gm_csf.html
For further in formation about this or any of our clinical trials, please contact the Northern California Melanoma Center at (415) 750-5660.
Dr Lynn Spitler
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