ASCO 2009 Presentation

Sanjiv Agarwala, MD, Chief of Oncology and Hematology at St. Luke's Cancer Center, presented an abstract entitled "Chemoablation of melanoma with intralesional rose bengal (PV-10)," in the General Poster Session at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2009 Annual Meeting. Dr. Agarwala is the Prinipal Investigator for the phase 2 clinical study of PV-10 for metastatic melanoma being conducted at St. Luke's Hospital & Health Network in Bethlehem, PA.

The presentation poster is available as a PDF download.

For further information on PV-10 for melanoma, please see our Melanoma Clinical Trial Update page.

Presentation Highlights

Key interim data from the first 40 subjects in the Phase 2 study included:

• Objective response of PV-10 treated lesions was observed in 60% of subjects.
• Locoregional disease control of treated lesions was observed in 75% of subjects.
• Response of untreated bystander lesions was consistent with observations from Phase 1 testing.
• Interim safety data were comparable to Phase 1, with transient mild to moderate locoregional pain, vesicles, edema or swelling most common.

In addition to these Phase 2 results, extended survival data were reported from the Phase 1 study, showing a survival advantage in terms of both overall survival (median 42.1 months vs. 12.3 months) and disease specific survival (44.1 months vs. 14.6 months) for subjects that achieved an OR in the Phase 1 study versus those that did not respond so robustly to PV-10. Such data support a possible systemic benefit for PV-10.