UFUR Plus Thalidomide for Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2010-08-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
We hypothesize that combination of tegafur/uracil(UFUR) and thalidomide, both of which have
been shown to be active in some HCC patients,may be a highly useful regimen for the treatment
of advanced HCC. There are several rationales underlying this combination. First,
anti-angiogenesis therapy may improve the efficacy of chemotherapy by normalizing the
abnormal vasculature in tumors, and thus improving the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents to
the tumor cells. Second, chemotherapeutic drugs given in a low-dose, un interrupted, and
protracted way can induce anti-tumor effect through the anti-angiogenesis activity
(so-called"metronomic chemotherapy"). The efficacy of metronomic chemotherapy can be
suppressed by VEGF/VEGFR signaling pathways and thus can bo further potentiated by agents
blocking those survival signals of endothelial cell. In this regard, tegafur/uracil appears
to be a good candidate for metronomic chemotherapy because tegafur/uracil and its metabolites
bave already been shown to inhibit angiogenesis in several pre-clinical models.