Preclinical study was conducted at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, wherein Aptocine was used to treat primary tumors and examine prevention of metastases in the 4T1 tumor model, an aggressive, spontaneously metastasizing murine mammary tumor model that mirrors human breast cancer.
To determine whether the therapy could enhance anti-tumor immunity and reduce metastases, the lymph node (LN) cells from treated and control mice were transferred to naïve recipient mice. Recipients were challenged with a tumorigenic dose of 4T1 cells 3 days after adoptive transfer and primary and secondary tumor growth in the recipients was examined.
Aptocine treatment significantly prolonged survival in treated animals. (All treated animals survived to termination at 24 days while median survival for controls was 8 days.)
This drug acts as an in-vivo vaccine—challenging a naïve mouse with tumor 40 days after transferring immune cells from an Aptocine-treated animal still conferred immune protection.
Aptocine (talaporfin sodium) is a water-soluble drug activated by an included small, single-use, disposable drug activator. It is designed to provide tolerable, effective, and repeatable treatments for cancer patients.
Packaged with Aptocine, the drug activator contains a tiny array of LEDs at the end of a very narrow (only 1.2 mm wide) flexible coated micro-wire.
The results of the study will be presented at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Orlando, Florida, on May 30, 2009.