Clinical study of recombinant adenovirus-p53 (Adp53) combined with hyperthermia in advanced cancer (a report of 15 cases)

The study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Adp53 combined with hyperthermia on advanced cancer. Fifteen patients with advanced cancer were enrolled in this clinical trial. Thirteen patients with recurrent tumours failed in conventional treatments and the two other patients with primary tumour received no treatment before they were enrolled. Recombinant adenovirus-p53 (Adp53) is a E1 substituted replication-incompetent recombinant adenovirus encoding the human wild-type p53 (wtp53) gene. The 15 patients were intra-tumourally injected with Adp53, 1 x 10(12) vp (virus particle) once a week, with a total of 4 similar to 8 times was given. The temperature being set hyperthermia every week 3 days after the injection of Adp53 at 43 similar to 44 degrees C using 915 MHz microwave machine for superficial tumour for 1 h or at 42 similar to 43 degrees C using 41 MHz radiofrequency machine for deep-seated tumour for 1 h. Among the 15 patients, five concurrently were added with radiotherapy and three were added with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The treatment achieved CR in two cases, PR in four cases, SD in eight cases and PD in one case and, after the treatment, tumours of two cases disappeared and seven of the other 13 cases (54%) had low-density area (LDA) of more than 50% on CT images in tumours. In the 15 patients, no dose-limiting toxicity and adverse events were noted, except transient fever after Adp53 administration. In conclusion, Adp53 combined with hyperthermia was safe and effective in patients with advanced cancer and p53 gene therapy was potential to thermosensitize in advanced cancer.