Sydney anti-cancer treatment company Noxopharm (ASX: NOX) has reported anti-cancer effects of its Veyonda treatment in a small group of patients suffering advanced prostate cancer.
The 14 patients’ cancers were metastatic and they had exhausted all treatment options when given Veyonda in association with low-dosage radiation in a single lesion.
After six months, cancer progression had been blocked in 80 per cent of patients in DARRT-1 study, and more than half continued to experience a clinically significant reduction (mean of 73 per cent) of their pain levels.
The DARRT-1 study is one of several being undertaken for Veyonda.
Noxopharm executive chairman Dr Graham issued a release which said the results were very encouraging, especially as Veyonda was very well tolerated by the patients and came with minor and easily manageable side effects.
Kelly said: “We are abut 3-4 weeks away from seeing the 6-month data for the final 11 patients.
“But even before that we are seeing an impressive anti-cancer effect…for men who have run out of treatment options.”
Veyonda, previously known as NOX-66, is an experimental anti-cancer formulation of the drug idronoxil.
It enhances the cancer-killing effect of standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy, thereby enabling lower doses of these toxic therapies to be used.
At another level, it seeks to activate the body’s immune cell function to attack those cancer cells that have survived the initial treatment.
The company’s ultimate aim is to harness the body’s immune system to inflict damage on all cancer cells in the body.
Through what is known abscopal effect, the hope is of eradicating most, if not all cancer cells to produce long-term remission or even a curative outcome.
An abscopal effect is where radiotherapy is applied to just the one lesion, and triggers a response in all other non-irradiated lesions.
Picture: Noxopharm
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