Vaccine May Extend The Lives Of Patients With Brain Cancer

Vaccine May Extend The Lives Of Patients With Brain Cancer

New advances have been made to treat an aggressive form of brain tumor. The vaccine, which passed the phase 2 clinical trial, may extend lives of patients suffering from glioblastoma multiforme. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is part of astrocitic tumors and is an aggressive form of cancer arising from nervous system glial cell proliferation. These tumors are infiltrative tumors and are poorly defined  from surrounding tissue. Glioblastoma multiforme is usually located in the cerebral hemispheres (frontal lobe, parietal, temporal, occipital more rare). The prognosis of this type of cancer is poor, the average survival being 14 months. Very few patients survive five years after diagnosis as relapses are very common. So, finding a treatment to prolong patients’ lives is extremely valuable.

Brain Cancer

Researchers have shown that the vaccine, using tumor tissue from the patient, can prolong survival by several months. After trials, it was found that vaccinated patients had a survival time of 47 weeks compared with other patients (who received standard treatment) who had a survival time of 32 weeks. Moreover, more patients who were vaccinated survived more than a year. The study was a multicentre and was conducted at UCSF Helen Diller Family’s Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center at Case Medical Center in Cleveland and at New York-Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. Neurosurgeon Andrew Paris, MD, PhD, who led the research, says these results are promising and  hopes that by combining the vaccine with other forms of therapy to extend lives of patients and more. The next step is to evaluate the efficacy of this vaccine with Avastin (bevacizumab), standard therapy in this cancer.

The mechanism behind cancer vaccines is similar to that used to prevent infection. By injecting pure antigens or cancer cells in the body triggers an immune response designed to destroy the tumor. Tumor cells are taken from the patient during surgery, then they are processed in the laboratory and eventually injected to the patient. Cancer vaccines are actually a form of active immunotherapy because it causes immune response to attack cancer cells. The first cancer vaccine was that  to treat prostate cancer, which was approved by the FDA in 2010.
Vaccine to treat glioblastoma multiforme is autologous, which means it is composed of dead cancer cells taken from the patient. TIn other words,  it is unique to each patient.
The current treatment for glioblastoma multiforme is multimodal. Patients have first surgery, then they follow a combination of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, angiogenic therapy, gamma knife radiosurgery and  corticosteroids.