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Refractory/Recurrent



Treatments that so far have Poor Responses for Ewing's Sarcoma

A number of chemo agents have been involved in clinical trials for Ewing's sarcoma and sarcomas in general. This is a partial list of the agents which have been removed from Ewing's trials due to poor responses.

 

Gleevec/STI571/Imatinib Mesylate 

  • Blocks an abnormal protein, preventing growth

  • Multi-center Phase 2 Gleevec trial; on or before 3/03, Ewing's sarcoma was removed from the trial due to lack of response (it was trialed with 5 patients, responses were 0/5)

  • NIH description of the trial

  • Open NCI pediatric Phase 2 trial on Gleevec, open for Ewing's sarcoma

  • Gleevec side effects

  • 2002 abstract of paper about Gleevec and Ewing's sarcoma cell lines; only tumors that have "constitutively activated STI571-sensitive tyrosine kinases" responsd to Gleevec

  • 2002 reference on 2 Ewing's sarcoma patients who developed fluid in lungs on Gleevec.

  • 2002 abstract stating good cell line results with Gleevec

  • 2001 article about Gleevec and GIST

PS-341/Bortezomib/Velcade 

  • Proteasome inhibitor; turns the NF-kB switch off, killing cells.

  • Was in a trial for sarcomas at MSK by Maki in 2002, but stopped due to lack of response.  (2003 ASCO abstract which discusses Phase 2 results: 7/11 progression, 2/11 stable, 1/11 mixed; all sarcomas, no Ewing's.) There seems to be a Phase 2 open now for Ewing's (description) with Maki as the PI.

  • PS-341 for multiple myeloma

  • 2003 abstract discussing toxicity.

  • 2002 abstract stating that proteasome inhibition induces cell death, and it well tolerated.

  • 2003 abstract discussing multiple myeloma success, and stating that perhaps proteasome inhibitors may help with refractory tumors.

Vaccines and Interleukin-2

  • 2002 abstract stating that vaccines with interleukin-2 didn't work for Ewing's sarcoma.