Southwest Oncology Group Opens New Lymphoma Trial with CuraGen's and TopoTarget's PXD101
CuraGen Corporation and TopoTarget A/S announced the Southwest Oncology Group, a national clinical trials cooperative group, has just opened a Phase II clinical trial to test the effects of a new investigational agent on aggressive B-cell lymphoma. The agent, PXD101, will be evaluated in patients whose previous treatment regimen did not work or whose cancer returned after treatment. The trial, also known as S0520, is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) under a Clinical Trials Agreement signed with CuraGen Corporation.
PXD101 is designed to inhibit histone deacetylase (HDAC). Histones are a class of proteins around which DNA is wrapped. The tightness of the wrapping controls the activity of the genes on the DNA. HDAC is an enzyme that changes the way histones bind to the genes. Laboratory studies suggest that drugs such as PXD101 can act on histones to kill cancer cells or prevent them from growing.
The purpose of the trial is to evaluate how B-cell lymphoma cells respond to the new agent, how patients tolerate the treatment and how long patients can live with the treatment without the disease becoming worse. Based on published preliminary data, study leaders are particularly interested in whether PXD101 will enhance expression of immune-mediating molecules on the tumor cells' surface and thereby increase the immune system's ability to target the lymphoma.
Study leaders would like to enroll up to 40 patients with refractory aggressive diffuse large, high-grade Burkitt's or Burkitt's-like or primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma for the trial. So far, 81 Southwest Oncology Group institutions are participating in the trial.
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