Explore the Therapeutic Intralesional Program

Overview

The Therapeutic Intralesional Program (TIP) is a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians and researchers working together to create infrastructure and a community of experts focused on direct-to-tumor therapies across multiple tumor types. A primary initiative is to create a portfolio of clinical trials relating to direct-to-tumor therapies in various settings (neoadjuvant, adjuvant, metastatic disease) including therapeutic approaches such as in situ vaccines, oncolytic viruses, immune adjuvants, and ablative therapies This trial system incorporates a robust correlative research infrastructure and interfaces with a variety of programs including imaging, bioengineering, and computational/systems biology. We incorporate two primary Mass General missions: excellence in clinical care and cutting-edge research.

What are Intralesional Therapies?

Intralesional therapies are any type of treatment in which the therapy (drug or intervention) is directly targeted to the tumor, instead of being delivered via the blood stream. This includes direct injection of drugs/viruses/vaccines into the tumor and also includes ablative therapies that directly target/kill the tumor such as radiation or cryoablation (“freezing the tumor”).

Advancing Care through Research and Clinical Trials

Direct-to-tumor therapies (vaccines, oncolytic viruses, immune adjuvants, ablative therapies) are a new area of growth, but a fragmented infrastructure and lack of integration across disciplines are obstacles for current programs. The Therapeutic Intralesional Program at the Mass General Cancer Center aims to leverage the broad-based expertise of one of the nation’s pre-eminent general hospitals to provide patients with access to cross-disciplinary trial opportunities by bringing together the clinical and research expertise of Mass General faculty from various disciplines, including: Dermatology, Engineering, GI, Imaging, Immunology, Inpatient Oncology, Interventional Radiology, Nursing, Outpatient Oncology, Pathology, Pharmacy, Radiation Oncology, Research, and Surgery.

The goals of the Therapeutic Intralesional Program are:

  • Establish a multi-disciplinary team of experts and synergize resources for direct-to-tumor therapies in multiple tumor types and across various disciplines
  • Develop a portfolio of clinical trials relating to direct-to-tumor therapies in various settings (neoadjuvant, adjuvant, metastatic disease)
    • In situ vaccines, oncolytic viruses, immune adjuvants, radiation or ablative therapies alone or in combination with other systemic therapies, such as immunotherapy
  • Create a built-in correlative research structure
  • Incorporate two of Mass General’s primary missions:
    • Excellence in clinical care
    • Cutting-edge research

Our areas of focus include:

  • Disease-specific team “champions” from areas including, Melanoma, Breast, GI, Head/Neck, Thoracic
  • Infrastructure and resource integration
  • Cross-disease trial opportunities
  • A broad patient base including early disease (prevention trials) and late-stage disease (therapeutic trials)
  • Neoadjuvant “window of opportunity” – trials in which the biology of responses can be interrogated
  • We are strongly focused on improving the patient experience via robust support for outpatient access and referral management for physicians/providers
  • Research Coordination / Research Management

Clinical Trials

View open clinical trials:

 


Literature & Publications

Therapeutic benefits of tumor targeting, or tumor specific drug expression

Review on tumor microenvironment targeting

Imaging the tumor immune microenvironment