Monica Mita, M.D., is principal investigator of the REOLYSIN® sarcoma treatment clinical trial at the CTRC Institute for Drug Development.
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Contact: Jill Byrd, (210) 450-5550

Due to successful results from an earlier cancer study, the Cancer Therapy & Research Center’s (CTRC) Institute for Drug Development at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is seeking patients for a Phase II study involving a novel anticancer therapy using a live virus to treat patients with sarcoma.

The treatment is called REOLYSIN®, after the name of the human reovirus involved in the therapy.

Virus attacks cancer cells, but spares healthy ones
According to Monica Mita, M.D., principal investigator at CTRC, the virus attacks the cancer cells, but leaves the healthy cells alone. An added benefit is that the side effects of the treatment are minimal, similar to that of a mild cold, compared to the often more serious side effects caused by chemotherapy treatment.

“This novel therapy has shown success because the reovirus replicates in and destroys the cancer cells within the patient’s body,” Dr. Mita said. “Cancer cells have several molecular and genetic abnormalities. In normal, healthy cells, the reovirus is unable to reproduce because of an enzyme named PKR. The enzyme is suppressed in cancer cells, and therefore the reovirus can replicate in the cancer cell and kill it.”

More patients sought due to trial’s early success
Earlier this month Oncolytics Biotech Inc., the biotechnology company sponsoring the study, announced that the therapy has been successful and has been approved to proceed to full enrollment for patients with various types of sarcomas that have spread to the lung.

"We are very pleased to proceed to the second stage of the REOLYSIN® study," Dr. Mita said. "This unique, targeted compound has met our expectations so far in terms of both tolerability and efficacy endpoints and we feel it is very important to continue to offer this agent to our patients."

For the study to move forward to full enrollment with 52 patients, at least one of the first 38 patients enrolled had to have responded at least partially to the treatment, or the cancer had to have stopped growing, for at least six months.

Kenneth Scott visits with his wife, Helen, while receiving a REOLYSIN® cancer treatment.

Patient shares life-changing experience of participating in the trial
Kenneth Scott, the third patient treated in the study, has responded well to the novel therapy. A computed tomography scan showed that his cancer stabilized for more than six months. These results were confirmed by a more advanced imaging technique, a positron emission tomography scan.

“Being diagnosed with cancer is a life-changing experience, but being on this study has been another life-changing experience because the therapy is actually doing what they wanted it to do,” Scott said. “My wife and I are better people than we were five years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer. When we learned the sarcoma has metastasized to my lung, we decided to put my life in God’s hands. Two weeks later we learned about the study.”

Eligibility requirements for joining the study
Twelve patients, all treated at CTRC, have received REOLYSIN® therapy so far, with five remaining on study. To be eligible for the study, patients must have a bone or soft tissue sarcoma that has spread to the lung and must be considered by their physician to be unresponsive to treatment or unable to be treated by standard therapies. These include patients with osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma family tumors, malignant fibrous histiocytoma, synovial sarcoma, fibrosarcoma and leiomyosarcoma.

“REOLYSIN® typifies the true targeted therapy approach that seeks to use fundamental differences between cancer and normal cells as the basis for effective anti-cancer approaches and we are thus very excited about this study,” CTRC Deputy Director Francis Giles, M.D., said.

“Sarcoma seems to be a mysterious type of cancer and one that is difficult to treat,” said Scott, who was diagnosed in 2003. “Being that REOLYSIN® is an experimental therapy, it means that not all patient stories are positive ones. It is my hope that many people with sarcoma will benefit from this study, and being a part of a study that offers hope to other patients is exciting. God has made special things happen at CTRC. I haven’t done anything; I am just along for the ride.”

For more information about the study, call (210) 450-5798.

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