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Atovaquone as Tumour HypOxia Modifier

NCT02628080 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: EARLY_PHASE1 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 46

Last updated 2019-09-04

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Solid tumours often have highly disorganised vasculature that results in low oxygenation. This combined with high metabolic rates leads to oxygen demand outstripping supply causing tumour hypoxia. Hypoxia drives multiple cellular processes involved in the hallmarks of cancer. Tumour hypoxia also decreases the effectiveness of anticancer treatments. This is especially true for patients treated with radiotherapy since it has been long recognised that hypoxic tumour cells require 3 times the dose of radiation to cause the same amount of cell death as cells irradiated under normal oxygen conditions.

To date, the majority of attempts at overcoming tumour hypoxia have focused on increasing oxygen supply. However, such techniques have produced modest benefits at best and subsequently have not been adopted into current clinical practice.

An interesting alternative approach to tackling tumour hypoxia is to decrease oxygen 'demand' by reducing tumour oxygen consumption. This strategy has been suggested to be more effective in reducing hypoxia than previous methods aimed at increasing oxygen delivery.

Pre-clinical data demonstrates that the commonly prescribed anti-protozoal drug atovaquone significantly reduces oxygen consumption in a variety of tumour cell lines in vitro. This reduction in oxygen consumption leads to a profound reduction in tumour hypoxia in animal models. It is anticipated that if these effects on tumour hypoxia could be reproduced in humans, that their tumours could be rendered markedly more sensitive to radiotherapy.

This window of opportunity trial will assess whether atovaquone significantly reduces tumour hypoxia in adult patients referred for surgery with suspected non-small cell lung cancer. This will be assessed using a combination of functional imaging and circulating markers of hypoxia. If atovaquone is demonstrated to result in a reduction in tumour hypoxia, larger clinical trials will be conducted to determine whether this well-tolerated and inexpensive agent improves radiotherapy efficacy and clinical outcomes.

Conditions

  • Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung

Interventions

DRUG

Atovaquone

Atovaquone has an EU marketing authorisation (held by Glaxo Wellcome UK Ltd) and is indicated for acute treatment of mild to moderate Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP). It is also used in combination with proguanil for malaria prophylaxis.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Oxford

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Geoff Higgins, MBChB, MRCP, FRCR · University of Oxford

Study Design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2016-05-31
Primary Completion
2018-10-31
Completion
2018-12-31

Countries

  • United Kingdom

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT02628080 on ClinicalTrials.gov