
Last year in the UK over 60,000 cancer patients enrolled on clinical trials aimed at improving cancer treatments and making them available to all.
Please note - this trial is no longer recruiting patients. We hope to add results when they are available.
This trial is looking at panobinostat (also known as LBH589) for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) that is not responding to other types of treatment.
Doctors usually treat AML with chemotherapy. The aim of treatment is to get rid of the leukaemia (getting it into ) and then to stop it coming back. But sometimes the leukaemia does come back. It is then more difficult to get into remission again.
Unfortunately AML doesn’t always respond to treatment and researchers are always looking for new treatments to use in this situation.
Panobinostat is a drug that blocks called deacetylases (pronounced dee-as-et-isle-azes). Cells need these enzymes to grow and divide. Blocking them can stop leukaemia cells growing.
The aims of this study are to
5You can enter this trial if you
You cannot enter this trial if you
This is a phase 2 trial that will recruit up to 164 people. Everybody who joins the trial takes panobinostat capsules. You swallow them with a large glass of water on 3 days a week. As long as you don’t have any bad side effects, you can carry on having panobinostat for as long as it helps you.
The trial team will ask you to fill out a questionnaire before you start treatment, every 2 months during treatment, and when you finish treatment. The questionnaire will ask you about any side effects you have had and about how you have been feeling. This is called a quality of life study.
You will see the trial doctors and have some tests before you start treatment. The tests include
The doctors call each 4 week period of treatment a cycle of treatment. You go to hospital
On some of the days you go to hospital, you take the panobinostat capsules while you are there. You have blood tests at each visit. You also have a number of ECGs and some bone marrow tests during the trial.
When you finish treatment, you see the trial doctors and have another bone marrow test, an ECG and more blood tests. The trial team will then contact you by phone every 3 months to see how you are.
As panobinostat is a new drug, there may be side effects that we don’t know about yet. Possible side effects include
Panobinostat can also cause changes to the electrical rhythms in your heart. The trial team will keep a close eye on this during your treatment.
If you have side effects, the trial team can reduce the dose of panobinostat you take.
You must not eat Seville oranges (including marmalade) or grapefruit (or drink the juices) during the trial.
Please note: In order to join a trial you will need to discuss it with your doctor, unless otherwise specified.
Professor Richard Clarke
Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC)
NIHR Clinical Research Network: Cancer
Novartis
If you have questions about the trial please contact our cancer information nurses
Freephone 0808 800 4040
Last year in the UK over 60,000 cancer patients enrolled on clinical trials aimed at improving cancer treatments and making them available to all.