Developing a novel therapy, combining RIT with conventional therapy, for treatment of advanced colorectal cancer

肠癌是英国第三种最常见的癌症(每年新增38000例)，其中超过50%的患者最终死于自己的疾病。放射免疫疗法(RIT)使用一种人造分子，这种分子与我们有时会制造的抗体非常相似，以对抗感染我们的细菌，只是它被设计成与外来癌细胞结合，而不是细菌细胞。癌症靶向抗体可以与放射性联系起来，并注射到患者体内，在那里它能够杀死体内任何地方的癌细胞。这种方法在临床试验中已经在一些患者身上取得了部分成功。然而，癌症有时会再生，因为抗体和辐射不能到达所有细胞，一些受到辐射轰击的细胞似乎会存活下来。注射更多的放射性标记抗体是不可能的，因为增加的辐射也会影响血液中的细胞和保护我们免受感染的正常白细胞。我们之前的研究表明，当我们将RIT与另一种同样针对结直肠癌的抗体结合时，放射性标记抗体的辐射效果增加，肿瘤动物被治愈。我们计划对这两种抗体的剂量和给药时间进行实验，以便在3年内将联合抗体治疗的时间表作为临床试验的一部分提供给患者。

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK ( 38,000 new cases/year), with more than 50% of those patients eventually dying of their disease. Radioimmunotherapy (RIT), uses a man-made molecule that is exactly like an antibody that we would make to fight the bacteria that infect us sometimes, except it is designed to bind to foreign cancer cells rather than bacterial cells. The cancer targeting antibody can be linked to radioactivity and injected into the patient, where it becomes able to kill cancer cells wherever they are in the body. This method has been partly successful in some patients in clinical trials. However, the cancer sometimes regrows, because the antibody and radiation cannot get to all cells and some that are bombarded with radiation, seem to survive. It is not possible to inject more of the radiolabeled antibody as the increased radiation would also affect the cells in the bloodstream and our normal white cells that protect us from infection. Our previous research showed that when we combined RIT, with another antibody which also targets colorectal cancer, the effect of the radiation from the radiolabeled antibody increased, and animals with tumours were cured. We plan to experiment with the amount of the two antibodies, and the times that they are given, so that the schedule for the combined antibody therapy is ready to be given to patients as part of a clinical trial within 3 years.