New Drug for Soft Tissue Sarcoma Doing Well in Clinical Trials

Sarcoma is cancer of the connective tissue such as muscle, cartilage, blood vessels, nerves and bones. Soft tissue (non-bone) sarcomas are rare, but they can occur in many parts of the body such as muscle or fat of the extremities or the trunk. They can also occur in the abdomen, pelvis or chest. There are many types of soft tissue sarcomas, but most are treated in the same way. Some common soft tissue sarcomas include fibrosarcoma, liposarcoma, malignant fibrous histiocytoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and synovial sarcoma.

CytRx Corporation a biopharmaceutical company specializing in oncology, today announced that favorable results from a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial with aldoxorubicin (formerly INNO-206) in patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma will be featured in a poster and discussion presentation at the Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS) 17th Annual Meeting on November 15 in Prague, Czech Republic.

The abstract, "Aldoxorubicin (INNO-206) is an active drug for the treatment of relapsed or refractory soft tissue sarcomas," will be presented by the clinical trial's principal investigator Dr. Sant Chawla, M.D., F.R.A.C.P. Dr. Chawla, a world renowned expert in the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas, is Director of the Sarcoma Oncology Center in Santa Monica, Calif. The Phase 1b/2 clinical trial results, first announced in early June 2012 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, showed clinical benefit (defined as partial response and stable disease of more than four months following up to eight cycles of treatment) with aldoxorubicin at the maximum tolerated dose in 10 of 13 evaluable patients with advanced, metastatic soft tissue sarcomas who had either not responded or relapsed after receiving one to three prior chemotherapies. Eight of the 13 patients had been treated previously with doxorubicin.

"We are excited to share the powerful data from our aldoxorubicin clinical trial with experts from the international oncology community at this preeminent sarcoma conference, as well as at the upcoming ESMO 2012 Congress in Vienna, Austria," said Steven A. Kriegsman, CytRx President and CEO. "The results from this clinical trial are impressive, especially given that these patients had failed prior chemotherapy regimens. Further, there were no observed cardiac toxicities with aldoxorubicin in this clinical trial, with cardiac toxicity considered a major dose-limiting factor for standard doxorubicin. Again, we thank Dr. Chawla for his valuable time to present at these international conferences."

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Why Muscular Cancer Is Very Rare

How many times have you heard of muscular cancer? Never, would be the answer from most people?  Cancer of the muscles are very rare. Why does cancer not develop in muscles?

                                           

                                                  Post mitotic cells

First, muscle cancers do occur, but they are rare. The reason muscle cells rarely become cancerous is that they are "post-mitotic cells.

Post-mitotic means the cells no longer replicate themselves via mitosis. The process of carcinogenesis occurs in cells that are replicating. The process of carcinogenesis begins with a mutation in a cell that is passed on to the daughter cell when the initial cell replicates - this process is called "Initiation".

As more and more of these mutated daughter cells replicate, the potential for more mutations occurs (again mutation occurs during the process of cell replication called mitosis). This process of ongoing development of additional mutations is called "Promotion". At this stage of carcinogenesis a "tumor" has formed, but it is not yet cancerous.

The final stage of carcinogenesis is called "Progression". This last stage occurs when tumor cells acquire additional mutations (again, mutations require cell replication) that allow the tumor cells to spread (metastasize) - thus, becoming "cancer".

You can get sarcoma muscle cancer which is a cancer of the soft tissue that support the muscles.

Sarcoma Muscle Cancer - Soft tissues are the tissues that connect, support or surround organs of the body or other structures such as muscles, tendons, fat, blood vessels, nerves and tissue around the joints. Malignant or cancerous tumors that develop in a child's soft tissue are called sarcomas. They are relatively uncommon, accounting for less than 1 percent of all new cancer cases each year.

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