A National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) research team has developed an antibody for treating pancreatic fibrosis and cachexia in people with pancreatic cancer, the institute said yesterday, adding that they aim to start clinical trials in two years.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers, but is often diagnosed at an advanced stage.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most common form of pancreatic cancer, making up more than 80 percent of cases, said Huang Tze-sing (黃智興), a researcher at the NHRI’s National Institute of Cancer Research.
Photo: CNA
As many people are diagnosed with PDAC at an advanced stage, the five-year-survival rate is only about 3 percent, he said.
Desmoplasia and cancer cachexia are two factors leading to high rates of cancer deaths, Huang said.
Desmoplasia is the growth of fibrous or connective tissue, which causes dense fibrosis around the tumor, and is a prominent feature of PDAC and several other cancers, he said.
Cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome characterized by unintentional weight loss, muscle wasting, anemia, and asthenia, leading to poor quality of life and a reduced chance of survival, and the prevalence in PDAC patients is relatively high, Huang said.
He said that his research team had previously found that the amount of extracellular heat shock protein 90 alpha (eHSP90 alpha) in the serum of people with PDAC is about 100 times more than in healthy people, which can contribute to desmoplasia and induce cachexia, leading to tumor progression.
Therefore, in collaboration with a research team from the NHRI’s Institute of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Research, they developed a humanized eHSP90 alpha antibody that can suppress desmoplasia and inhibit cancer progression, while also improving cachexia, Huang said.
In animal studies, the humanized eHSP90 alpha antibody can effectively block desmoplastic PDAC development, regulate immune cell activity in tumor tissues, inhibit cachexia and prolong the survival rate of mice, Huang said.
The mice that used the humanized eHSP90 alpha antibody were able to live up to 450 days, compared with 380 days for those who did not use the antibody, Huang said.
They even gained weight and muscle mass back, indicating an improvement in their quality of life, he added.
The antibody is not cytotoxic, so it did not cause enlargement of the spleen in the mice, he said.
The antibody can be used alone or in combination with gemcitabine, a chemotherapy drug used for treating cancer, to suppress desmoplastic tumors more, Huang said, adding that hopefully it could also be used to inhibit the progression of other types of cancer.
The team said they had received the National Innovation Award for their finding, and had secured a patent in Taiwan.
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