Experts Report Breakthrough in Liver Cancer

The first effective treatment for primary liver cancer, using radioactive antibodies to attack cancer cells, has tripled the average remission time in a group of patients and dramatically reduced the size of some cancers, researchers announced Tuesday.

The technique also effectively treats Hodgkin’s disease and could have applications to several other cancers, including leukemia, breast and lung cancer and possibly AIDS, the scientists said.

In 104 cases of liver cancer studied since 1979, almost half have gone into remission and 7% are in total remission, the researchers said at a news briefing. The usual remission rate is 15%, and patients survive an average of only three to four months after treatment begins.

Although primary liver cancer, which originates in that organ, is one of the less common malignancies in the United States, the survival time is only a few months after diagnosis in 95% of cases.

Under the treatment described Tuesday, one patient has lived cancer-free for almost four years, and another’s 15-pound tumor was reduced to two pounds, said Dr. Stanley E. Order, professor of radiation oncology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Order leads a team that has conducted research at UC San Francisco and Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.

“We have the first effective treatment for liver cancer,” Order said.

Technology Transferred

He told reporters: “We have been able to transfer the technology . . . across the United States. It works wherever you put it, and it can go in a private-practice environment as well as a university environment.”

The findings will be presented at a health care convention next week in Washington and published later by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Erwin Witkin, a Baltimore gynecologist who is an adviser to the convention, said: “It may not be the miracle of the ages, but it’s a tremendous breakthrough and advance.”

In the treatment, patients are given two injections of antibodies containing radioactive iodine. The antibodies seek out antigens, or proteins, on the surface of the cancer cells and begin to irradiate.

Antibodies ‘Never Give Up’

This irradiation process is temporary in conventional therapy, allowing the cancerous cells to repair themselves. But in the new technique, Order said, the antibodies “never give up . . . . It keeps on radiating around the clock, so the opportunity for repair of the cells is reduced.”

Moreover, the new treatment is enhanced by the fact that when animal antibodies are injected into a human, an “alarm” goes off, causing the body’s immune system to work harder and thus join the radiation in attacking the cancer cells, Order said.

The antibodies used in the study, called polyclonal antibodies, are raised in several species of animals that have been found to react against human liver cancer cells.

Danger Posed to Others

At present, patients must remain isolated for days because the radioactivity from their treatment poses a danger to others. But Order said the treatment eventually will be available on an outpatient basis, adding that he hopes that the remission rate will improve as scientists learn more about the technique.

In an interview, Order said that although it is not certain that the radioactive antibodies can combat other diseases, scientists are exploring possibilities. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome and Hodgkin’s disease may be possible targets for the antibodies because they involve the lymph nodes and weakening of the immune system.

“There may be some connection through the materials that we’re working with,” Order said. “That’s one of the things we’ve been talking about in the last four weeks.”

37 Patients Treated

When 37 patients with severe cases of Hodgkin’s disease were treated with the new technique, one experienced complete remission and 40% of the patients had partial remissions, he said.