Long-term Follow-up of Patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma Receiving High-Dose Adenovirus Herpes Simplex Thymidine Kinase/Ganciclovir Suicide Gene Therapy

Abstract

Intrapleural Ad.HSVtk/ganciclovir is safe and well tolerated in mesothelioma patients and resulted in long-term durable responses in two patients. Given the limited amount of gene transfer observed, we postulate that Ad.HSVtk may have been effective due to induction of antitumor immune responses. We hypothesize that approaches aiming to augment the immune effects of Ad gene transfer (i.e., with the use of cytokines) may lead to increased numbers of therapeutic responses in otherwise untreatable pleural malignancies.