Drug combo surprises in results

Massey researchers completed a Phase I clinical trial evaluating the use of the drugs bortezomib and alvocidib in patients with relapsed or refractory blood cancers, marking the first time a proteasome inhibitor (such as bortezomib) was combined with a cell cycle inhibitor (such as alvocidib) to treat patients with cancer.

“This is one of the first trials of its type in which two targeted agents that interfere with two very different biological processes are being combined to treat patients with blood cancers,” said co-investigator Steven Grant, M.D., the Shirley Carter and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Oncology Research at Massey and professor of internal medicine.

Supported by funding from a V Foundation Translational Research Award and the NIH, the trial included 16 patients who had either indolent (nonaggressive) non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma or multiple myeloma. After they received a 21-day cycle of treatments, participants experienced two complete responses, meaning that all detectable traces of the cancer were gone, and five partial responses.

While the trial was meant only to determine the maximum tolerated dose with acceptable side effects for this novel drug combination, the above-mentioned therapeutic responses in 44 percent of patients was encouraging, said Beata Holkova, M.D., a hematologist-oncologist at Massey and co-investigator on the clinical trial. As a result, the team is developing a Phase II clinical trial in cooperation with the National Cancer Institute to test the effectiveness of this drug therapy, which will be conducted in collaboration with multiple institutions to compare the effectiveness of fixed doses of the drug combination in a larger patient population.