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Thursday, February 19, 2004The vaccine uses cancer cells obtained from the patient's tumor to activate the immune system. In the trial, 43 patients with early and advanced-stage non-small cell lung cancer were treated with the vaccine. Half of the patients responded to the treatment. For about 10 percent, the remission lasted more than eight months, and some patients have been cancer-free for three years, said Dr. John Nemunaitis, oncologist and researcher at the Mary Crowley Medical Research Center at Baylor. People with non-small cell lung cancer typically survive four to six months. ...In the study, three patients with advanced-stage lung cancer experienced complete remission lasting six months, 18 months and ongoing at 22 months. For two of these patients, treatment with chemotherapy had failed. One patient experienced a 30 percent decrease in the size of a lung nodule, and for seven patients, the disease did not progress for a period ranging from almost five months to more than 28 months. One of the significant advantages is that the vaccine has virtually no side effects, Nemunaitis said. According to the abstract, the only side effect was a little redness and irritation at the site of the injection. Here's the abstracted data from the study: Three of 33 advanced-stage patients, two with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, had durable complete tumor responses (lasting 6, 18, and 22 months). Longer survival was observed in patients receiving vaccines secreting GM-CSF at more than 40 ng/24 h per 106 cells (median survival = 17 months, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 6 to 23 months) than in patients receiving vaccines secreting less GM-CSF (median survival = 7 months, 95% CI = 4 to 10 months) (P = .028), suggesting a vaccine dose–related survival advantage. (Editor's note: GM-CSF is a chemical put out by cells that stimulates the immune system.) This does look promising, and has some interesting implications. Since the vaccine was produced from the patients' tumor cells, there is the possibility that it could also be effective against other types of cancer, as long as access to the tumor is possible. And it gains survival advantage without serious side effects, unlike so much of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. posted by Sydney on 2/19/2004 08:35:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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