Palliative thoracic radiotherapy plus BKM120
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A CR-UK phase I study of BKM120 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving thoracic radiotherapy
IRAS ID
113844
Contact name
Geoff Higgins
Sponsor organisation
University Of Oxford
Eudract number
2012-003762-40
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Research summary
Cancer cells often have genetic changes that cause them to behave in a more aggressive way and to be resistant to treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy (RT). Once such pathway involves phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K). Pre-clinical experiments have shown that inhibiting PI3K by using a drug called BKM120, tumour cells are made more sensitive to cell death following cell irradiation. Tumours typically have a poor blood supply (perfusion) which causes them to have low oxygen levels (hypoxia). Radiotherapy is much less effective at killing cancer cells when tumours are hypoxic and patients with hypoxic tumours have a worse prognosis than patients whose tumours are not hypoxic. Experiments have shown that BKM120 can increase tumour blood flow and reduce tumour hypoxia, although the exact way in which it does this is not yet clear. If BKM120 reduces tumour hypoxia and increases tumour perfusion in humans it is likely to make radiotherapy treatment more effective at killing cancer cells. We will assess whether BKM120 changes tumour hypoxia and perfusion by conduction FMISO PET and perfusion CT scans before and during treatment with BKM120. These scans detect tumour hypoxia and tumour perfusion respectively.
REC name
South Central - Oxford B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
12/SC/0674
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jan 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion