Supportive Oligonucleotide Therapy (SOT) as an Alternative Treatment Option in Cancer: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Background/aim: An early evaluation concerning the effectiveness of supportive oligonucleotide therapy (SOT) in cancer as a monotherapy and in combination with other types of treatment.

Patients and methods: This study evaluated the clinical condition and performance status (Karnofsky-Index) of 95 patients, post-SOT administration. Furthermore, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from 47 patients' pre- and post-SOT administration were measured and analyzed by repeated-measures ANOVA.

Results: Improvement of the clinical condition was observed in all patients who used SOT (77.89%), SOT in combination with other therapy (69.77%) and SOT as a monotherapy or no information was given concerning another therapy (84.31%). Positive results for Karnofsky-Index were also observed in 71.58%, 61.36%, and 80.39%, respectively. Finally, statistically significant reductions in CTCs were observed for both SOT as a monotherapy and SOT as an adjunctive therapy.

Conclusion: The preliminary results indicate that SOT therapy can be used both as monotherapy as well as in combination with other therapies for cancer.

Keywords: CTCs; Karnofsky index; RNA interference; Supportive oligonucleotide therapy; cancer; clinical evaluation; statistical analysis.