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VIDEO: Checkpoint inhibitors, vaccines, viral therapy may offer multiple treatment options for brain tumors
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Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, director of neuro-oncology at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center, discusses the results of several studies presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting that demonstrated checkpoint inhibitors, vaccines and viral therapy show promise in inducing immune responses in patients with glioblastoma.
“With regard to checkpoint inhibitors, we’ve learned that they induce potent immune responses in the brain and we have some early signals of efficacy, but with quite a bit of toxicity, especially [the] combination of PD-1 and CTLA-4 inhibition,” Kesari told HemOnc Today.
He also highlights results of a study that demonstrated the use of Toca 511 (Tocagen Inc.) – a retroviral replicating vector that selectively delivers a gene for cytosine deaminase to the tumor – improved PFS and OS in patients with recurrent high-grade glioma.
Kesari mentions two additional studies involving emerging agents – Ziopharm Oncology’s adenovirus expressing IL-12 and VBL Therapeutics’ vascular targeting virus – that have demonstrated efficacy in initial phase 2 trials and are “going into phase 3 studies in the near future.”