Focusing On Patients

Molecular Medicine
(continued)

Not all clinical trials look at new drugs. Many are designed instead to evaluate new doses or combinations of existing agents, or to assess an existing agent in an additional form of cancer.

Donna Jenson, 69, an artist living in Magalia, Calif., made her way to UC Davis Cancer Center in March 2001 after she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Here, she agreed to participate in a clinical trial of rituximab, a drug that fits into receptors on lymphoma cells and flags them for destruction by the immune system.
The drug earned FDA approval in 1997, but continues to be investigated in dozens of clinical trials around the world. The ongoing trials seek to determine the optimal dosing for the drug, and the most powerful combinations of rituximab and other drugs against multiple forms of cancer.

Jenson’s cancer rapidly retreated into remission on her experimental rituximab regimen, and she is glad she opted to try a cutting-edge treatment, one with the potential to be better than standard therapy. “I am doing wonderful,” she said. “I feel better than I have in years.”
Leasa Leonard, 62, was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma last January and given six months to live. She knew there were no guarantees, but she still decided to volunteer for a clinical trial of UCN01, another investigational targeted therapy.

“I knew that even if the drug didn’t help me, by participating I could do something for science,” she said. “After all, someone else did the same for the drugs I was already taking.”

All signs so far are good. By enrolling in the UCN01 trial, Leonard has benefited not just science, but herself.

Within five days of starting on UCN01, the tumors on her jaw and collarbone disappeared. Her other tumors continue to shrink.

“Everything is smaller,” she said. “They were growing pretty rapidly, and they just stopped.”

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Leasa Leonard

Diagnosis:

Adeno-carcinoma

Treatment:

UCN01
clinical trial

Status:

Dramatic improvement