Gene Therapy for Liver Tumours: First Clinical Trials

Overview

Only a small percentage of primary and secondary liver tumours is suitable for surgical resection. Gene therapyrepresents a novel strategy that seems to be effective both, in vitro and in vivo. The use of tumour suppressor genep53 therapy, suicide gene therapy, immune gene therapy and therapy with replication-competent oncolytic adenovirusesin liver tumours already entered the first clinical trials. In patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, the firstclinical trials in phase I and II showed good tolerance and low toxicity to gene therapy. However, the clinical benefitfor the patients treated either with wild type p53 or E1B deleted adenoviruses were marginal.

Key words:
gene therapy, liver tumours, clinical trial.