Knoxville, TN. – Baptist Regional Cancer Center is offering a new clinical trial to patients with ovarian cancer. This trial is called the Gamma Interferon and Chemotherapy Efficacy Study (GRACES) and is designed to explore whether adding Interferon gamma-1b to a standard chemotherapy regimen will slow the growth of ovarian or primary peritoneal cancer.
In the United States there were more than 23,000 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed during 2000. Ovarian cancer tends to recur despite good initial response to currently available therapies, and led to the eventual death of approximately 14,000 women during 2000. Better therapy is still needed for this disease as evidenced by these recurrences and deaths. Adding Interferon to conventional therapy may be part of the answer.
Interferon gamma-1b is a human protein that occurs naturally and stimulates the body’s immune system. The protein aids in prevention of the formation of excessive scar or fibrotic tissues. By triggering a class of immune cells called macrophages, Interferon gamma-1b stimulates the immune system, resulting in the destruction and removal of harmful organisms such as bacteria, fungi and other abnormal cells such as cancer cells.
During the study, led at Baptist Hospital by gynecologic oncologists Don Hall, M.D. and David A. Martin, M.D., patients will be treated with standard chemotherapy medications along with Interferon gamma-1b. Every three weeks for a total of 18 weeks, study participants will receive chemotherapy. In order to create a “control group” by which to base the results of the study, half the participants receive standard chemotherapy and half receive the Interferon gamma-1b during the treatment. Patients are randomly assigned to receive either treatment.
All trial participants are carefully monitored to allow comparison of response to therapy and to ensure identification of any side effects that would differ between the treatment groups.
Thus far, in prior studies done in Europe, patients treated with Interferon gamma-1b have shown an overall survival rating of 74 percent compared to the 58 percent survival for the trial’s control group. Participants in the trial must begin receiving treatment 12 weeks after their first surgery. No other prior therapy for ovarian or primary peritoneal cancer is allowed.
To inquire about the study, contact coordinator Kim Kincaid, RN, at 632-5206.

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