Today, MolMed, an Italian pharmaceutical company, released results from its NGR-hTNF for mesothelioma clinical trial. While the trial, which enrolled 400 pleural mesothelioma patients, demonstrated no increases in overall survival of the entire population, it did show an improvement in survival for those patients with a poorer prognosis and whose disease had progressed between first-line chemotherapy and the start of the trial.
Moreover, for this latter group of patients, researchers observed a 40% longer progression-free survival.
Dr. Julie Brahmer, who led the trial at Johns Hopkins (this was a worldwide trial), said that “it is great to see a survival advantage with the addition of a new drug in combination with chemotherapy for mesothelioma.” She added that, “unfortunately the study was not positive for the overall population. It is unclear why this subpopulation would benefit and the whole population would not. I look forward to the full presentation of the results.
“This study is the first of its kind in mesothelioma, and may provide a new treatment option for patients who had cancer growth after standard chemotherapy,” said Lee Krug, MD, the chair of the Board of Directors of the Meso Foundation, and thoracic oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
More information is available through this press release by MolMed.
The Meso Foundation previously wrote about this clinical trial, and discussed the NGR-hTNF clinical trial in one of its “Meet the Mesothelioma Experts” broadcast.
