UCLA researcher finds drug to help cancer treatment
By Tiffany McElroy
Daily Bruin Contributor
As a young boy, James Berenson fantasized about becoming a
scientific explorer of the human body.
At the age of 12, he lost his father to cancer, which propelled
him to study medicine. As he started his medical career, his cousin
died from myeloma, and this event lead Berenson to specialize in
myeloma research.
Myeloma is the cancer of bone marrow-based plasma cells. The
cells produce an overabundance of proteins that cause bone cells,
called osteoclasts, to release acids that break down the bones.
After a nine month study, Berenson and his research team at
UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the West LA Veterans
Administration Medical Center have found a drug called Aredia
(generically known as pamidronate) that will significantly lessen
both pain and bone destruction caused by myeloma.
"This is a new approach to treating a major complication in
cancer that is not radiation treatment based, not chemotherapy, and
not really hormonal," Berenson said.
Researchers said it is rare for a drug to be approved so quickly
by the FDA, but because the data was so convincing it was approved
on a single trial.
"Aredia is already FDA approved for hypercalcemia, so it was
much more simpler than trying to get a brand new drug approved
which causes more problems," Berenson said.
"This drug had been used safely in the United States and FDA
approved for several years, so we were trying to get a new
indication for it, which was a much simpler process. This is
significant, in that it will provide a new treatment for the 50,000
patients in the U.S. who are suffering from bone damage due to
myeloma.," he explained
The study consisted of one group of patients who received the
study drug and another group who received a placebo infusion.
Infusions were administered to patients intravenously over a period
of four hours, once a month for nine months.
The patients who received the study drug were found to have less
pain than the patients who received the placebo.
"The patients quality of life assessment was much better in the
Aredia group then in the placebo group," Berenson said. "This is a
drug that lessens pain, reducing the need for pain-killing drugs,
improves quality of life, and gives patients less complications
which is difficult to find in cancer treatments."
The drug’s side effects are very minimal, researchers said. Only
a small percent of patients may have a fever or joint or muscle
pains after the first or second infusions.
The major complications that patients run into with myeloma is
that their bones break down, which can lead to fractures and
necessitate radiation therapy.
"Aredia allows a patient to go through their lives with less
risk of having to deal with fractures, pain or radiation," he
said.
Theoretically, Aredia works by injuring the bone resorbing
cells, also known as osteoclast. It makes the environment less
hospitable to grow, and makes the cells less able to break down
bones.
"This study is a significant advance in management for patients
living with severe pain in their bones which keep them immobile,"
said Alan Lichtenstein, who is a co-investigator in the study, a
professor of medicine at UCLA and the chief of hemotology at the
West LA Veterans Affair Medical Center.
"What Dr. Berenson has done is for the first time scientifically
proves that a drug can decrease the likelihood of bone
complications for those patients, as well as decrease related pain
and, most importantly, improve the patients’ quality of life and
ability to perform everyday tasks," stated Kenneth Anderson,
associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and
medical director of the Blood Component Laboratory at Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute in Boston.
Clinical trials on the drug are continuing at UCLA and the West
LA Veterans Affairs Medical Center.Comments to
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