HOUSTON, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Texas researchers said they plan a trial of a gene therapy designed to treat aggressive human superficial bladder cancer.
Scientists at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in an article published in this month's issue of the journal Molecular Therapy, wrote human bladder tumors growing in experimental mice shrank after two treatments with gene therapy, which caused the bladder to secrete the anti-cancer agent interferon-alpha.
In fact, in many of the mice, there was little or no evidence of cancer cells remaining in the bladder.
Also, every kind of bladder cancer cell line tested in the laboratory responded to treatment, even cells known to be resistant to the interferon-alpha protein.
"Of course these results have been achieved in mice, not humans, but they are very exciting," said lead investigator William Benedict. "I have never seen a potential therapy for superficial bladder cancer that could produce such marked regression of tumors within the bladder."
Bladder cancer is the fifth leading U.S. cancer, and "superficial" bladder cancer -- confined to the lining of the bladder wall -- is the most common type, with more than 45,000 new cases each year.
