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Related: About this forumFour-Week Vaccination Regimen Knocks Out Early Breast Cancer Tumors, Penn Researchers Report
Last edited Mon Jan 30, 2012, 06:51 PM - Edit history (1)
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2012/01/cancer-tumors/News Release
[font size=5]Four-Week Vaccination Regimen Knocks Out Early Breast Cancer Tumors, Penn Researchers Report[/font]
[font size=4]Majority of Patients Treated Develop Strong, Lasting Immune Responses[/font]
[font size=3]PHILADELPHIA -- Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania report that a short course of vaccination with an anti-HER2 dendritic cell vaccine made partly from the patients own cells triggers a complete tumor eradication in nearly 20 percent of women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), an early breast cancer. More than 85 percent of patients treated appear to have a sustained immune response after vaccination, which may reduce their risk of developing a more invasive cancer in the future. The results of the study were published online this month of Cancer and in the January issue of the Journal of Immunotherapy.
The researchers say the results provide new evidence that therapeutic breast cancer vaccines may be most effective for early, localized disease, and when the treatment attacks a protein critical to cancer cell survival.
I think these data more than prove that vaccination works in situations where the target is right, says the studys leader, Brian Czerniecki, MD, PhD, surgical director of the Rena Rowan Breast Center and Surgical Director of the Immunotherapy Program for the Abramson Cancer Center. Previous vaccines targeted tissue antigens that were expressed on the cancer cells, but were not necessary for tumor survival. So a vaccine response would cause the tumor to just stop expressing the antigen and the tumor would be fine. Here were going after HER2/neu, which is critical for survival of early breast cancers. If we knock it out with the immune response, we cripple the tumor cells.
Czerniecki and colleagues enrolled 27 women with HER2-positive DCIS. They isolated specialized white cells from the patients blood using standard apheresis techniques similar to the blood donation process. Once isolated, the researchers activated the dendritic cells, which are key regulators of the immune system, and primed them with small pieces of the HER2/neu protein in Penns Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility. Each patient then received four shots, one week apart, of their personalized anti-HER2 vaccine. And two weeks later patients had surgery to remove any remaining disease, which is standard care for DCIS patients.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/CJI.0b013e318235f512
gopiscrap
(23,765 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)If I recall basic math correctly, over 80 percent showed no improvement or no change? While I very good thing for the nearly 20 percent, still a huge majority don't seem to benefit.
This is also a very small preliminary study, so we simply have to wait for further testing.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cncr.26734
At surgery, 5 of 27 (18.5%) vaccinated subjects had no evidence of remaining disease, whereas among 22 subjects with residual DCIS, HER-2/neu expression was eradicated in 11 (50%). When comparing estrogen receptor (ER)[font size=1]neg[/font] with ER[font size=1]pos[/font] DCIS lesions, vaccination was more effective in hormone-independent DCIS. After vaccination, no residual DCIS was found in 40% of ER[font size=1]neg[/font] subjects compared with 5.9% in ER[font size=1]pos[/font] subjects. Sustained HER-2/neu expression was found in 10% of ER[font size=1]neg[/font] subjects compared with 47.1% in ER[font size=1]pos[/font] subjects (P = .04). Postvaccination phenotypes were significantly different between ER[font size=1]pos[/font] and ER[font size=1]neg[/font] subjects (P = .01), with 7 of 16 (43.8%) initially presenting with ER[font size=1]pos[/font]HER-2/neu[font size=1]pos[/font] luminal B phenotype finishing with the ER[font size=1]pos[/font]HER-2/neu[font size=1]neg[/font] luminal A phenotype, and 3 of 6 (50%) with the ER[font size=1]neg[/font]HER-2/neu[font size=1]pos[/font] phenotype changing to the ER[font size=1]neg[/font]HER-2/neu[font size=1]neg[/font] phenotype.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)There's a degree of weasel language here. All too often early and very small samples indicate wonderful news which later on does not hold up.
I've gotten very, very cynical about these kinds of reports. I had a physician friend who was absolutely convinced that all women at menopause should start taking replacement hormones at the earliest sign of said pause, and stay on them forever. I was not quite mean enough to confront her when the news came out that actually, hormone replacement therapy was worse than doing nothing.
Plus, this is going to be a vaccine of very narrow use, I suspect. And then a few years down the road, when too many women have been terrified into taking it, we'll learn that oops! This vaccine may reduce breast cancer but oh, gosh, now your risk of something even more deadly is increased.