Liver Cancer May Be Treated Better With a Combination Therapy

(CTN News) A phase 2 clinical research found that a new combination medication could improve the response rate for liver cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy.

According to research, the combination therapy includes bavituximab, a medicine that neutralizes the fatty molecule phosphatidylserine, which liver cancer cells exploit to avoid identification and attack by immune cells.

A 2016 study discovered that bavituximab dramatically increased the response of liver tumors to pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an immunotherapy medicine licensed to treat cancer in 2016.

Researchers observed that when bavituximab and pembrolizumab were combined with liver cancer therapy, there was a 32% response rate, compared to a 16% response rate with pembrolizumab alone in earlier studies.

According to the researchers, pembrolizumab not only blocks the process by which liver cancer cells escape immune responses, but it also targets a distinct mechanism than bavituximab.

Dr. David Hsieh, assistant professor of internal medicine at the UT Southwestern Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center in Dallas, stated in a news release that the study’s findings show the potential to improve the success of cancer immunotherapies by targeting other immunomodulating proteins simultaneously.

A combined treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most frequent kind of liver cancer, is under development.

As long as sorafenib was available, only patients with HCC tumors that could not be surgically removed were eligible for this treatment. Sarofenib slows the growth of tumor-feeding blood vessels, however it only extends survival by a few months.

Recent improvements in immunotherapy have made them a feasible treatment option for HCC. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of patients respond to these medications when used alone, and combining multiple immunotherapies significantly increases the risk of serious and even fatal adverse effects.

During the trial, 28 patients with HCC were recruited to undergo the bavituximab/pembrolizumab combination therapy, and their progress was tracked for roughly 29 months on average.

At the end of the experiment, imaging tests revealed that two patients had responded completely, with no indication of liver cancer.

Furthermore, 32% of patients experienced a halt in progression after receiving combination therapy.

The combo therapy continued to decrease tumors in individuals who responded for an average of 13 months, according to the study. When the research concluded, four patients continued to respond to the combination medication.

Furthermore, researchers found that adding bavituximab did not appear to increase adverse effects when compared to using pembrolizumab alone.

As a result of these findings, researchers believe that adding bavituximab to immunotherapy regimens for additional tumors could improve their effectiveness while minimizing patient side effects.

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