Brain cancer vaccine looks good

An interesting announcement at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) meeting in Miami today, Tuesday 17th April, looked at the effectiveness of a vaccine against brain cancer, which showed promising results. The multicenter phase 2 clinical trial included more than 40 patients at UCSF's Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the Seidman Cancer Center, University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. The patients suffered from recurrent glioblastoma multiform, a disease which affects some 17,000 Americans every year. Encouragingly the trial found that the vaccine could extend a patient's life by several months, compared to 80 other subjects that were treated with standard methods, at the same hospitals. Those being treated with the new therapy had an average survival rate of 47 weeks, compared to 32 weeks in those using regular treatment. UCSF neurosurgeon Andrew Parsa, MD, PhD, lead researcher of the study, commented: "These results are provocative ... They suggest that doctors may be able to extend survival even longer by combining the vaccine with other drugs that enhance this immune response." The next phase will be a more wide ranging randomized clinical trial to look at the effectiveness of the drug when combined with Avastin, which is the standard treatment for this type of brain cancer. The National Cancer Institute has said it will begin enrolling patients this year. Some funding for the Phase 2 trial came though a $1.5 million-a-year grant to UCSF from the National Cancer Institute, known as Brain Tumor SPORE (Specialized Program of Research Excellence). The UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery is ranked as one of the best, with more than 1,100 neurosurgeries a year to remove brain tumors. Over the course of the last 30 years, they have built the most extensive brain tumor repositories in the United States, with tissue samples collected from thousands of people with cancer. Parsa thanked those involved, saying: "It never would have happened without them ... Patient advocacy groups are an important component of how we inform patients about this disease. These groups are also increasingly critical to funding translational research, which bridges the gap between the laboratory and the clinic." In the past, vaccines against cancer were not seen as affective because they failed to fully activate the immune system to attack the cancer. The new vaccines that Parsa, and his colleagues have created is based on a different approach using minute molecules known as heat shock proteins. They molecules are recovered from patients tumors, used in the creation of vaccines and then returned to their doctor who can administer the injections several times per year.