Panbela Therapeutics announces oral presentation at Digestive Disease Week

Panbela Therapeutics announces an oral presentation at the Digestive Disease Week conference, which was held May 18-21, 2024. The work reflects the Company’s on-going collaboration with Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Gastric adenocarcinoma is the fifth leading global cause of cancer mortality and leading infection-associated cancer. In the U.S., gastric adenocarcinoma represents a major cancer disparity, with incidence rates 2-3 times or more greater in all non-white populations. Patients with gastric premalignant conditions, intestinal metaplasia and atrophic gastritis, represent a high unmet need for chemopreventative approaches,” said Dr. Douglas R. Morgan, UAB Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL and Dr. Keith T. Wilson, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN. A National Cancer Institute funded, Phase IIa placebo-controlled Randomized Clinical Trial of eflornithine in patients with gastric premalignant conditions was conducted between September 2016 and December 2022 in rural Honduras and Puerto Rico and was an oral presentation at DDW by Dr. Wilson on May 21, 2024. H. pylori positive and negative subjects ages 30-60 were treated with eflornithine or placebo for 18 months, with endoscopy at baseline, and 6, 18, and 24 months. At baseline, 80% of subjects were Hp positive, and 46% and 54% had global histology of atrophy and intestinal metaplasia, respectively. A total of 78, 69, and 55 patients reached the 6-month primary outcome, the end-of-treatment 18 month, and the end-of-study 24 month time points, respectively. Eflornithine treatment was safe and well-tolerated. Overall grade 1-2 adverse events were greater in the placebo group and grade 3 AEs were also higher in the placebo. The results of the study demonstrated that eflornithine reduced DNA damage long-term in patients after completing treatment, as measured by pH2AX immunostaining, a DNA damage marker was significantly lower at the 24 month vs. 18 month time point in the eflornithine group and unchanged in the placebo group.