A preliminary study involving 19 patients with late-stage, hormone- refractory prostate cancer demonstrated that phenoxodiol, an investigational drug being developed by Novogen Limited (ASX: NRT), may be effective in the treatment of prostate cancer.
According to the researchers, phenoxodiol specifically targets a protein on prostate cancer cells known as tNOX 75 alpha.
When phenoxodiol binds to tNOX, the protein is inhibited, blocking the cell from dividing, and switching off a variety of pro-survival signaling mechanisms within the cell. Where this inhibition reaches a certain level, the cell dies; where it is below a lethal level, the cell is blocked from dividing.
In the clinical study, phenoxodiol was administered orally three times daily until patients showed disease progression. Blood samples obtained after two months of treatment revealed that tNOX 75 alpha levels responded to administration of phenoxodiol in 11 of the 19 patients.
The results were presented in the recently concluded International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutics, held September 12th to the 15th by the American Association of Cancer Research.
Source: Novogen
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