Molecular delivery system developed at URI shows promise against bladdercancer
). Thus, even if some amount of urine is drained into bladder during a 1 hr intravesical instillation period, the drained urine will not alter the pH of the buffered solution used for instillation to avoid targeting of all cells in the bladder. The results we report here are encouraging, and the therapeutic efficacy, potential system exposure and overall toxicity of pHLIP-based agents are now under study in transgenic bladder cancer mouse models.
A therapeutic trial is in progress using a different therapeutic conjugate, pHLIP-exatecan , where exatecan is a cytotoxic inhibitor of Topoisomerase I. The pHLIP construct was systemically administrated to patients with advanced metastatic cancer in phase I/II clinical trials with very promising initial results. Systemic administration of an agent leads to its exposure to a highly dynamic system with fast blood circulation and clearance.
The pHLIP technology may present several opportunities for improved management of urothelial cancer. Imaging and treatment of superficial bladder cancers might be performedintravesical instillation of pHLIP-ICG or pHLIP-amanitin .
The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers.