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Targeted thrombosis as an effective treatment of cancer Between 1970 and 1994, cancer claimed the lives of about 0.5 million Americans every year. According to the most recent statistics, it is estimated that approximately 1.3 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed and 555,500 people will die from cancer in the United States in the year 2002. The majority of anticancer therapies are alkylating agents and protein synthesis inhibitors, however targeting tumor vasculature and cell death are both emerging as exciting options. One of the challenges facing the drug development sector is to identify effective candidates that have an acceptable side effect profile. For example, Semaxanib (SU-5416) is an angiogenesis inhibitor that has broad antitumor efficacy. Unfortunately a phase I dose finding study showed that this molecule was associated with an unacceptable level of serious thromboembolic events. Thrombosis can however be a powerful tool for the treatment of cancer as long as hemostasis is limited to the tumor vasculature. Recently, Havard researchers have demonstrated that photodynamic activation of Miravant's novel photosensitizer MV6401 can bring about such an effect, specifically shutting down the microvasculature in a mammary tumor as a result of thrombus formation. In concert with the stasis, a dose-dependent tumor growth delay was observed. Perhaps of greatest interest was the observation that at therapeutic doses there was no long-term vascular damage outside of the tumor environment. The development of this application of photodynamic therapy thus holds considerable promise. Link to journal abstract:
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