Snips from article: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=37423
Rutgers Professor Suzie Chen has found that riluzole, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug used to treat Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), slows the growth of melanoma, the most aggressive form of malignant skin cancer.
A Phase 0 clinical trial of riluzole (brand name Rilutek), conducted by James Goydos, a surgical oncologist with The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, is in process with a small group of late-stage (stage 3 or 4) melanoma patients. Phase 0 is a recent designation by the FDA for exploratory, first-in-human trials.
"Our preliminary results show three solid positive responses in nine of the patients who had been able to complete the trial to date," Goydos said. "It is actually quite amazing that we got as many as we did."
Goydos said that the Phase 1/2 trial should begin in August, and he anticipates that it will include between 50 and 100 patients with stage 4 melanoma.
"I think this drug is going to be extremely important as an adjunct to surgical treatment of stage 3 or stage 4 melanoma," Goydos said. "The challenge is to keep it from recurring, which has happened in patients on the order of 50 percent. With low toxicity likely, riluzole could potentially be given for long periods of time to slow down the metabolic processes responsible for the disease's recurrence."
Rutgers Professor Suzie Chen has found that riluzole, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drug used to treat Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), slows the growth of melanoma, the most aggressive form of malignant skin cancer.
A Phase 0 clinical trial of riluzole (brand name Rilutek), conducted by James Goydos, a surgical oncologist with The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, is in process with a small group of late-stage (stage 3 or 4) melanoma patients. Phase 0 is a recent designation by the FDA for exploratory, first-in-human trials.
"Our preliminary results show three solid positive responses in nine of the patients who had been able to complete the trial to date," Goydos said. "It is actually quite amazing that we got as many as we did."
Goydos said that the Phase 1/2 trial should begin in August, and he anticipates that it will include between 50 and 100 patients with stage 4 melanoma.
"I think this drug is going to be extremely important as an adjunct to surgical treatment of stage 3 or stage 4 melanoma," Goydos said. "The challenge is to keep it from recurring, which has happened in patients on the order of 50 percent. With low toxicity likely, riluzole could potentially be given for long periods of time to slow down the metabolic processes responsible for the disease's recurrence."