MEDICAL JOURNAL REPORTS NEW INTERLEUKIN PROMISE
Promising new findings in the use of
a controversial experimental drug called Interleukin-2 as a
cure for cancer will be published in the April 9 issue of the
prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, according to a
Wall Street analyst who has obtained an advance copy of the
magazine.
    Among interleukin's principal U. S. makers are Cetus Corp
<CTUS>, headquartered in Emeryville, Calif., and Immunex Corp
<IMNX>, based in Seattle, Wash.
    The journal, to be released late today, contains two
articles reporting high remission rates several cancer types.
    The journal also contains a signed editorial concluding
that the new results mark a significant milestone in the search
for a successful immunotherapy for cancer.
    Interleukin-2, also known as IL-2, is a substance naturally
produced by living cells in the laboratory.
    The drug is controversial because it was widely praised as
a promising cancer treatment in early reports on its
effectiveness in late 1985, only to come under criticism a year
later for its failure to live up to its promise and due to its
ravaging side effects.
    One of the new studies, conducted by Dr. William West of
Biotherapeutics Inc of Franklin, Tenn., is particularly
significant because it found far fewer harsh side effects after
it changed the way in which the drug is administered.
    In that study, researchers administered IL-2 to 48 cancer
patients and found a 50-pct remission rate for kidney cancers
and a 50 pct remission rate for melanoma, a type of skin
cancer, according to Prudential-Bache Securities' Stuart
Weisbrod, who obtained the advance copy of the magazine.
    For rectal and colon cancer, the researchers found no
remissions, but none of the 48 patients treated had side
effects serious enough to be placed under intensive hospital
care, according to the article.
    In the second study, whose principal author is Dr. Steven
Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute, researchers
administered IL-2 to 157 cancer patients and found a 33 pct
remission rate in cancers of the kidney, a 27 pct rate in
melanomas and a 15 pct rate in cancers of the colon and rectum.
    In the National Cancer Institute trials, a total of four
patients died, the magazine reported, confirming the harshness
of the drug's side effects as originally administered.
    "Perhaps we are at the end of the beginning of the search
for successful immunotherapy for cancer," said the editorial,
signed by John Durant of Philadelphia's Chase Cancer Center.
    "These observations reported by Rosenberg and West surely
did not describe successful practical approaches ready for
widespread applications in the therapy of cancer patients," the
editorial said.
    "On the other hand, if they reflect, as seems possible, a
successful manipulation of the cellular immune system, then we
may be near the end of our search for a meaningful direction in
the immunuotherapy of cancer," the editorial concluded.
 Reuter
