Docs Get Cancer-Drug Grant

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) last week awarded two Harvard doctors $1.2 million to expand their clinical tests of a promising new drug treatment for cancer victims.

Richard L. Kradin and James T. Kurnick, who are both associate professors of pathology at the Harvard Medical School, said yesterday that the three-year NCI grant will allow them to apply their method of treating lung tumors with Interleukin 2 to a wider pool of patients, including patients with kidney tumors.

The drug, which is a growth hormone, stimulates the development of special white blood cells that fight the cancerous tumors. Interleukin 2 has been the subject of experiments since 1976.

At the Harvard-affiliated Massachusets General Hospital (MGH), the two researchers have developed a special technique which has proven effective in laboratory animals and in a small sample of patients.

The researchers remove cancer cells from the patients' body and culture them with the drug for two to three weeks. The resulting mixture of cancer cells and white blood cells, called T-lymphocytes, is then injected into the patient.

Since March 1985, the researchers have been testing the technique on seven patients with advanced lung cancer, Kurnick said. The treatment reduced tumors in some of the patients.

"Our goal is to evaluate the therapy on 40 patients," said Kurnick. "And we just began testing a patient with kidney tumors."

Kurnick said that his treatment is gaining recognition as the most effective technique of using Interleukin 2 to fight cancer tumors. Researchers who previously preferred other methods are now experimenting with his technique, he said.

Ordinary lymphocytes attack and destroy bacteria but usually fail to kill tumors. The MGH researchers theorize that lymphocytes stimulated with the drug may be able to destroy or at least limit the growth of cancer tumors.

Although Interleukin 2 thus far appears to help the body fight cancer, it can also have side effects, including severe weight gain, respiratory problems and hypertension.

"Interleukin 2 in high doses causes substantial complications. Although we try to reduce the side effects by using very small doses, it's not a drug without problems," Kurnick said.

The NCI grant will enable the researchers to hire a nurse to help administer the treatment and also to reimburse colleagues who have donated time to the study, Kurnick said.