Breast cancer drug meeting wider success

An experimental drug tested in New Zealand to treat breast cancer is also proving successful with skin cancers in patients in Australia.

Provectus Pharmaceuticals announced yesterday that the first phase of clinical trials of PV-10 on 20 Australian patients with metastatic melanoma, an aggressive and often fatal cancer, had shown good results.

Some tumours disappeared completely, while others shrunk significantly. The treatment also had a "bystander effect", shrinking tumours not targeted by the drug.

The trial, at the Sydney Melanoma Unit and the Newcastle Melanoma Unit, involved test subjects having one or more tumours treated with a single injection of PV-10. Researchers found no evidence of systemic or serious side effects in subjects after an observation period of 12 to 24 weeks.

The results have prompted the company to extend trials to another group of patients with up to 20 melanoma lesions.

The size of lesions to be treated will also be doubled.

PV-10 is an agent that is retained in tumour tissue while leaving normal tissue unharmed, thereby killing the tumour while sparing healthy tissue. The Tennessee-based company's pre-clinical animal studies have shown the drug's ability to selectively remove focal cancers such as skin melanomas and breast carcinomas.

Five New Zealand women with recurring breast cancer were injected with the drug last year as part of phase 1 trials for PV-10's effects on breast tumours.

The women had the drug injected directly into one or more tumours, were observed for between one and three weeks, and then had the breast tissue removed for clinical assessment. Trials are continuing.

Provectus chief executive Craig Dees said the Australian data made the company optimistic about the drug's prospects in treating melanomas.