Neutralizing antibody plus paclitaxel diminish ovarian tumors.(monoclonal antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor)

2002 DEC 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Monoclonal antibody and paclitaxel could be key to reducing abdominal fluid accumulation and limiting tumor growth in patients with ovarian cancer.

The accumulation of abdominal fluid, which is known as ascites formation, often accompanies ovarian cancer. In the past, medical investigators at the University of California at San Francisco determined monoclonal antibody to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF mAb) stopped ascites but had inconsistent effects on ovarian cancer tumor growth. However, their most recent study has revealed a combination of VEGF mAb and paclitaxel can stop both.

Limin Hu and colleagues used murine models of human ovarian cancer in their latest study, treating three different sets of animals for 6 weeks with a combination of VEGF mAb and paclitaxel, VEGF mAb monotherapy, or paclitaxel monotherapy. They left a fourth set of animals untreated for control purposes.

"Tumor burden in the VEGF mAb plus paclitaxel and paclitaxel alone groups was reduced by 83.3% and 85.7% and 58.5% and 59.5%, respectively, in two separate experiments, compared with controls," said Hu and coauthors. VEGF mAb monotherapy did not reduce tumor burden in mice implanted with VEGF-secreting or non-VEGF-secreting human ovarian cancer cells.

Mice treated with VEGF mAb and paclitaxel or VEGF mAb alone developed little or no ascites, while ...