New drug may halt tumor progression

The drug, known as a aurora kinase inhibitor, works by blocking aurora proteins, which play a key role in cell division and are implicated in the onset and progression of cancer. Aurora proteins are over-expressed in cancer and this causes unequal distribution of the genetic material, creating abnormal cells, the hallmark of cancer.

“So far we have tested the drug in 36 patients in a phase I clinical trial. All the patients had advanced solid cancers that were progressing at the time they entered the trial. However, in seven of these patients the disease stabilized and has remained stable in four of the patients for seven months or more,” said Dr Maja de Jonge, a medical oncologist at the Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

However, it is only recently that scientists have started to investigate the proteins as targets for anticancer therapies, and this is one of the first studies to investigate an aurora kinase inhibitor in patients.

In the study seven different dose levels of the drug were tested.

“Once the dose levels reached 190 mg/m2, tests on skin biopsies showed that the drug was inhibiting the aurora B protein, in other words it was beginning to do what we expected it to,” said Dr Maja de Jonge.

The researchers are continuing to recruit patients in order to define the safety of the drug and the recommended dose for subsequent studies.