New Cancer Vaccines Get Trial In New Milford

By Andrew Gorosko

NEW MILFORD –– New Milford Hospital/Columbia-Presbyterian Regional Cancer Center is the only hospital in the state where scientific testing of two new “immunotherapy” medications for chemotherapy patients with advanced colon cancer and ovarian cancer is underway.

Oncologist Orion Howard, MD, who is the hospital’s research director, is supervising those two Phase II clinical trials.

The novel medications that are being tested on patients –– ALVAC-CEA/B7.1, which is a colon cancer vaccine, and Ovarex, which is an experimental drug for ovarian cancer –– both seek to boost the functioning of a patient’s immune system to fight off cancer.

“Immunotherapy,” as the treatment approach is known, tends to have few, if any, negative side effects. Immunotherapy is used in conjunction with conventional chemotherapy.

Dr Howard came to New Milford Hospital in June 2000 from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, where he was responsible for designing and conducting cancer drug trials for patients with lymphoma, a form of cancer that affects the lymphoid tissues.

Participating in clinical drug trials helps New Milford Hospital stay current with the latest research on treating cancer patients, Dr Howard said. “I want to provide my patients with cutting-edge options,” he said.

“Many of the most promising cancer treatments are both less toxic and more effective than those of the 1990s, and the newest [treatments] are only available through clinical trials,” according to the hospital.

The point of conducting trial testing on new medications is to learn whether new therapies would produce better results than existing forms of treatment, Dr Howard said.

Because thousands of patients are studied overall during the course of medication trials, New Milford Hospital’s research findings are combined with research results from many other institutions in analyzing the effectiveness of the new medications.

The colon cancer vaccine study is being conducted in conjunction with researchers at New York- Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

Besides New Milford Hospital, Northwestern Connecticut Oncology and Hematology Associates (NWCOHA) of Torrington is participating in the ovarian cancer study. The two facilities are the only places in the Northeast participating in the Ovarex study. Dr Howard is a medical partner at NWCOHA. The Ovarex study is being sponsored by a pharmaceutical firm in Florida.

Ovarex has been shown to prolong the life of some patients with ovarian cancer, according to the hospital. 

New Milford Hospital’s testing of new cancer medications on patients is coupled with established therapies, Dr Howard said. All patients who participate in the clinical tests receive conventional chemotherapy, but only some of those patients also receive the new medications, he said.

Since 2000, New Milford Hospital has participated in eight trials of new cancer medications, Dr Howard said.

The hospital is taking part in a major chemotherapy study, known as the STAR trial, which seeks to find effective therapies to prevent breast cancer in women who are at high risk of getting that disease.

Also, the hospital is participating in a clinical trial of a new medication for lung cancer.

Besides seeking new medications that are more effective at treating cancer, the clinical research also seeks to find medications that are less toxic to patients and consequently create fewer negative side effects, Dr Howard said.

The four goals of the clinical research are: seeking drugs that have a higher probability of curing patients; increasing patients’ lifespans; improving patients’ quality of life, and finding new ways to treat cancer, Dr Howard said.

Such clinical research is conducted through four phases. Phase I testing seeks to establish the safety and dosage aspects of new drugs. Phase II seeks to learn those drugs’ effectiveness against specific diseases. Phase III testing compares the effectiveness of new drugs to existing standard treatments. Phase IV studies new drugs’ effectiveness in treating various other diseases.

Although some Phase I studies have been done at New Milford Hospital, the institution more typically does Phase II and Phase III testing, as does NWCOHA, Dr Howard said.

The number of patients who are eligible to participate in the cancer medication trials is strictly limited, based on the specific goals of a given medication testing program, Dr Howard said. 

In the past, most clinical trials of new cancer drugs have been conducted at large cancer centers, in places such as New York City, Boston, and New Haven.