scholarly journals Gene Therapy: A Potential Approach for Cancer Pain

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chalonda R. Handy ◽  
Christina Krudy ◽  
Nicholas Boulis

Chronic pain is experienced by as many as of cancer patients at some point during the disease. This pain can be directly cancer related or arise from a sensory neuropathy related to chemotherapy. Major pharmacological agents used to treat cancer pain often lack anatomical specificity and can have off-target effects that create new sources of suffering. These concerns establish a need for improved cancer pain management. Gene therapy is emerging as an exciting prospect. This paper discusses the potential for viral vector-based treatment of cancer pain. It describes studies involving vector delivery of transgenes to laboratory pain models to modulate the nociceptive cascade. It also discusses clinical investigations aimed at regulating pain in cancer patients. Considering the prevalence of pain among cancer patients and the growing potential of gene therapy, these studies could set the stage for a new class of medicines that selectively disrupt nociceptive signaling with limited off-target effects.

Author(s):  
Kannan P ◽  
Gunaseelan K ◽  
Parthasarathy V

<p><strong>Objective</strong>: Pain is one of the most common symptoms that troubles cancer patients and precludes satisfactory quality of life. Globally, nearly 80% of the cancer patients receive little or no pain medication and cancer pain is barely controlled. This study was done to analyse the prevalence of pain and pain treatment in patients presenting to palliative care unit in a regional cancer centre.</p><p><br /><strong>Methods</strong>: Palliative care registry and follow-up forms of 2142 patients who got registered in our palliative care unit were analysed to obtain the demographic details, treatment characteristics and to determine the prevalence of pain, its severity, and treatment in cancer patients in our regional cancer centre.</p><p><br /><strong>Results</strong>: Nearly 50% of the cancer population had head and neck and gastrointestinal tract malignancies and received only best supportive care. Stage IV disease was found in 40% of patients, and skeletal metastasis (52%) was most common. This study showed a 92.4% prevalence of cancer pain in our centre. About 40% of patients with pain had a pain score of 7-10 by Numerical rating scale on initial presentation to the palliative care unit. About 65% of the patients with severe pain had a response to treatment withmorphine during their first follow-up to palliative care unit after initial registration. The average overall pain score of the patients per visit decreased from around 7 to 4 at a median follow-up of ten months.</p><p><br /><strong>Significance of results</strong>: Thus, there is a high prevalence of pain in cancer patients and patients with severe pain receive little or no opioid medication at all probably due to the lack of adequate education and training to the primary oncologists and residents regarding prescription of strong opioids. This audit may help in the modification of existing and formulation of new policies in the delivery of palliative care.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 135 (11) ◽  
pp. 1369-1387
Author(s):  
Darnel Prakoso ◽  
Mitchel Tate ◽  
Miles J. De Blasio ◽  
Rebecca H. Ritchie

Abstract Diabetes increases the prevalence of heart failure by 6–8-fold, independent of other comorbidities such as hypertension and coronary artery disease, a phenomenon termed diabetic cardiomyopathy. Several key signalling pathways have been identified that drive the pathological changes associated with diabetes-induced heart failure. This has led to the development of multiple pharmacological agents that are currently available for clinical use. While fairly effective at delaying disease progression, these treatments do not reverse the cardiac damage associated with diabetes. One potential alternative avenue for targeting diabetes-induced heart failure is the use of adeno-associated viral vector (AAV) gene therapy, which has shown great versatility in a multitude of disease settings. AAV gene therapy has the potential to target specific cells or tissues, has a low host immune response and has the possibility to represent a lifelong cure, not possible with current conventional pharmacotherapies. In this review, we will assess the therapeutic potential of AAV gene therapy as a treatment for diabetic cardiomyopathy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 235-254
Author(s):  
R. Garrett Key ◽  
Dustin Liebling ◽  
Vivek T. Malhotra ◽  
Steven D. Passik ◽  
Natalie Moryl ◽  
...  

Pain is prevalent in cancer patients, and the number of people diagnosed and living with cancer is expected to increase in the future. The need for experts in cancer pain management will grow as treatment complexity and survival increase. Cancer clinicians need to understand the pharmacologic, surgical/interventional, and psychological approaches to cancer-related pain. This chapter reviews the prevalence of pain in cancer, cancer pain syndromes, pain assessment and treatment, and pain-related recommendations of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). Psychiatric and psychological interventions in the treatment of cancer pain are an integral part of a comprehensive approach to pain management and are highlighted.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moataz Dowaidar

According to recent discoveries from various metabolic disease studies, gene therapy is a fantastic opportunity to alleviate skeletal problems. By adding aspartic acid octapeptide (D8) to the AAV2 vector's VP2 capsid protein N-terminal region, Almeciga et al. created a new strategy for targeted delivery of the AAV vector to the bone in 2018. After 3 months of injection into MPS IVA rats, the AAV2-D8 vector showed a significant affinity for HA, a significant number of viral vector copies, and increased enzyme activity in bone. These findings show that the capsid vector bone-targeting peptide may be employed to retarget the AAV vector and treat bone diseases. Modified microRNA (miRNA), on the other hand, has begun treating bone disorders to push gene therapy to molecular and metabolic control levels. Sun et al. presented a 2019 study on the efficacy of miRNA-based gene therapies for bone regeneration, increasing bone structure, and preventing osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures. MiRNAs have been identified as critical in a number of cell processes in bone cells, including proliferation and differentiation. MiRNA treatment has two effects: it suppresses the expression of bone-forming defective genes and raises the expression of genes that become dormant during bone building. However, this sort of treatment can induce low stability, limited bone specificity, and off-target effects. Recent research has demonstrated that integrating miRNAs with a vector such as AAV or a baculovirus vector has increased bone delivery specificity, addressing the specificity and efficacy restrictions of miRNA delivery. Viral Vector-based Systemic miRNA Delivery Systems is the term for these systems. The MiRNA-based treatment, which has tremendous bone treatment potential, needs additional investigation. For future gene therapy methods, we must produce clinically effective bone degradation medicines with no off-target effects. In patients with skeletal diseases causing osteoporosis, preventing and resolving bone and cartilage lesions remains an unfulfilled aim. Compared to non-targeting treatment, bone-targeted therapy offers several benefits, including delivering the right amount of medicine to skeletal lesions, reducing drug dose, minimizing side effects, and enhancing therapeutic efficacy. Bone-targeting approaches based on polymeric oligopeptides and nanoparticles have been developed in recent decades. Nevertheless, these achievements are still in the preclinical stage. To reach the clinical level, additional study is needed. Gene therapy combined with bone-targeting techniques such as acid amino acid oligopeptide and nanomedicine may be the next generation of one-time systemic bone disease therapies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 113710
Author(s):  
Tao Wang ◽  
Xun Zhu ◽  
Hyun Yi ◽  
Jun Gu ◽  
Shue Liu ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Vratko Himič ◽  
Kay E. Davies

AbstractDuchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked progressive muscle-wasting disorder that is caused by a lack of functional dystrophin, a cytoplasmic protein necessary for the structural integrity of muscle. As variants in the dystrophin gene lead to a disruption of the reading frame, pharmacological treatments have only limited efficacy; there is currently no effective therapy and consequently, a significant unmet clinical need for DMD. Recently, novel genetic approaches have shown real promise in treating DMD, with advancements in the efficacy and tropism of exon skipping and surrogate gene therapy. CRISPR-Cas9 has the potential to be a ‘one-hit’ curative treatment in the coming decade. The current limitations of gene editing, such as off-target effects and immunogenicity, are in fact partly constraints of the delivery method itself, and thus research focus has shifted to improving the viral vector. In order to halt the loss of ambulation, early diagnosis and treatment will be pivotal. In an era where genetic sequencing is increasingly utilised in the clinic, genetic therapies will play a progressively central role in DMD therapy. This review delineates the relative merits of cutting-edge genetic approaches, as well as the challenges that still need to be overcome before they become clinically viable.


Author(s):  
Keiichiro Ishibashi ◽  
Toru Aoyama ◽  
Masahito Kotaka ◽  
Hironaga Satake ◽  
Yasushi Tsuji ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of first-line chemotherapy with re-introduction of oxaliplatin (OX) more than 6 months after adjuvant chemotherapy including OX. Methods Stage II/III colon cancer patients with neuropathies of grade ≤ 1 who relapsed more than 6 months after adjuvant chemotherapy including OX were considered eligible. Eligible patients were treated with 5-fluorouracil, l-leucovorin and OX plus molecularly targeted agents or capecitabine and OX plus bevacizumab (BV) or S-1 and OX plus BV. The primary endpoint was the progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoints were the overall survival (OS), response rate (RR) and toxicity. Results A total of 50 patients were enrolled between September 2013 and May 2019. Twelve patients received 5-fluorouracil, l-leucovorin and OX (FOLFOX) plus BV, 21 patients received capecitabine and OX plus BV, 10 patients received S-1 and OX plus BV and 7 patients received FOLFOX plus cetuximab or panitumumab. The median PFS was 11.5 months (95% confidence interval [CI] 8.3–16.0), the median OS was 45.4 months (95% CI 37.4–NA), and the RR was 56.0% (95% CI 42.3–68.8). Adverse events of grade ≥ 3 that occurred in ≥ 5% of cases were neutropenia in 6 patients (12%), peripheral sensory neuropathy in 5 patients (10%), diarrhea in 4 patients (8%), hypertension in 4 patients (8%), anorexia in 3 patients (6%) and allergic reactions in 3 patients (6%). Conclusions First-line chemotherapy with re-introduction of OX more than 6 months after adjuvant chemotherapy including OX can be used safely with expected efficacy for relapsed colon cancer patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (14) ◽  
pp. 7545
Author(s):  
Myriam Sainz-Ramos ◽  
Idoia Gallego ◽  
Ilia Villate-Beitia ◽  
Jon Zarate ◽  
Iván Maldonado ◽  
...  

Efficient delivery of genetic material into cells is a critical process to translate gene therapy into clinical practice. In this sense, the increased knowledge acquired during past years in the molecular biology and nanotechnology fields has contributed to the development of different kinds of non-viral vector systems as a promising alternative to virus-based gene delivery counterparts. Consequently, the development of non-viral vectors has gained attention, and nowadays, gene delivery mediated by these systems is considered as the cornerstone of modern gene therapy due to relevant advantages such as low toxicity, poor immunogenicity and high packing capacity. However, despite these relevant advantages, non-viral vectors have been poorly translated into clinical success. This review addresses some critical issues that need to be considered for clinical practice application of non-viral vectors in mainstream medicine, such as efficiency, biocompatibility, long-lasting effect, route of administration, design of experimental condition or commercialization process. In addition, potential strategies for overcoming main hurdles are also addressed. Overall, this review aims to raise awareness among the scientific community and help researchers gain knowledge in the design of safe and efficient non-viral gene delivery systems for clinical applications to progress in the gene therapy field.


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