Use of amantadine in the evaluation of response to chemotherapy in lung cancer: a pilot study.

Aim: The assessment of tumor response to therapy is of critical importance as it permits for a prospective end point evaluation and provides a guide to clinicians for making future treatment decisions. However, current practices in early evaluation of chemotherapy are insufficient. Amantadine is a substrate for SSAT-1 . The present pilot study tests the hypothesis that SSAT-1 activity within the tumor, as measured by plasma acetylamantadine concentrations, can be used to monitor patient response to therapy.
Results: In cases with evidence of disease response, there was a reduction in the plasma acetylamantadine concentration at 4 h by approximately 32%. There was a mean increase of approximately 34% at the 4 h collection in the nonresponders.
Conclusion: Although large-scale studies are required these findings suggest that the amantadine test could allow for determination of the efficacy of therapeutic interventions earlier, providing an effective test to assess response to treatment and for better management of patients.
Competing Interests: Financial & competing interests disclosure RA Bux is the President and CEO of BioMark Diagnostics Inc. D Moyer is Clinical Research Manager at BioMark Diagnostics Inc. G Huang is Project Director at BioMark Diagnostics Inc. AW Maksymiuk, DS Sitar, H Bach, PS Tappia and B Ramjiawan are minor shareholders of BioMark Diagnostics Inc. This study was supported, in part, by Biomark Diagnostics Inc. (BC, Canada), Maunders-McNeil Foundation (AB, Canada) and the University of Manitoba. Biopharmaceutical Research Inc. (BC, Canada) completed the LC/MS/MS analyses. Infrastructural support was provided by the St Boniface Hospital Foundation and the University of Manitoba. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
(© 2021 Paramjit S. Tappia, Andrew W. Maksymiuk, Rashid Ahmed Bux et al.)