Exploration of Targeted Anti-tumor Therapy

Table 2. Biological activity of most relevant β-glucans investigated in clinical studies

Clinical trial (ref.)	Features	Patients	β-glucans/other drugs	Results
Halstenson CE, et al., [96]	Phase 1a/b. Single center, randomized, double-bind, placebo-controlled, dose escalation study	Healthy volunteer subjects	Imprime PGG	Acceptable safety profile, well tolerated
NCT03246685 [97]	Phase 2. Multicenter, open-label study	Advanced Squamous Cell Carcinoma of H&N (SCCHN) patients	Imprime PGG & Pembrolizumab	Terminated for enrollment failure
Uhlik M, et al., [98]	Phase 2. Multicenter, open-label study	44 ABA positive mTNBC patients	Imprime PGG & Pembrolizumab	mTNBC: - Objective response rate (ORR) was 15.9%, with 1 complete response (CR) and 6 partial responses (PR) - 17/44 shown stable diseases (SD) for more than 1 year (best response) and 4/44 for more than 2 years - Overall survival (OS) rate at 1 year was ~ 63%; median OS is 18.1 months by Kaplaian-Meyer estimation (95% CI, 12 months-not reached)
Chan A, et al., [99]	Phase 2. Multicenter, open-label study	40 ABA positive metastatic melanoma patients	Imprime PGG & Pembrolizumab	Melanoma patients: - disease control rate (DCR) was 45% (with 1 CR and 8 SD) - median OS was 8.8 months (with 12 month OS rate equal to 45%)
Modak S, et al., [100]	Phase 1.	24 chemo-resistant NB patients	Oral β-glucan & 3F8	- Acceptable safety profile, well tolerated - The maximum dose tolerated of β-glucan was not reached - A clinical response was observed in 63% of patients
Kushner BH, et al., [101]	Phase 1.	15 high-risk NB patients in remission	β-glucan & bivalent gangliosides vaccine	Acceptable safety profile, well tolerated
NCT03003468 [102]	Phase 1b/2.	mNSCLC patients	Imprime PGG & Pembrolizumab	On going
NCT03555149 [103]	Phase 1b/2. Open-label, multicenter, randomized Umbrella study	mCRC patients (cohort 3)	Imprime PGG & Atezolizumab (cohort 3)	On going

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mCRC: metastatic CRC; mNSCLC: metastatic NSCLC; mTNBC: metastatic triple-negative breast cancer; NB: neuroblastoma

Declarations

Author contributions

VC, NR and FT contributed to literature research and article’s selection. VC, NR, FT and FM wrote the manuscript and generated the figures and tables. FM and RB contributed to the revisions of the manuscript. All authors approved the published version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent to publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

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Funding

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