TTNP is silence, but this appear as new protocol for metastatic breast cancer trial with anti-id-vaccines:
>>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 15 JUNE 1998
Contact: Kimberly Cumbie
krcumb0@pop.uky.edu
(606) 323-6363
University of Kentucky Medical Center
New Study Designed To Improve Outcomes In Women With
Metastatic Breast Cancer
LEXINGTON, KY (June 15, 1998) -- Researchers at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center
recently announced the beginning of a novel clinical trial designed to improve the outcome of metastatic breast
cancer in some women. The most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer among women in the United States,
breast cancer was expected to kill more than 40,000 women in 1997.
Decades of research with traditional anti-cancer therapies, such as conventional chemotherapy and hormone
manipulation, have improved outcomes only marginally, although many women do live longer as a result.
"Women with advanced breast cancer benefit from transplants, but are rarely cured," said Kenneth Foon, M.D.,
chief of hematology/oncology and director of the UK Markey Cancer Center. "It is our hope that by adding a
vaccine therapy to stimulate an immune response, we will destroy residual tumor cells that remained following
chemotherapy."
Foon and Donna Reece, M.D., a hematologist/oncologist and director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant
Outpatient Clinic, have combined two treatment methods into a single treatment program to improve survival
rates.
The first requires high-dose chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells. The second involves the administration of a
vaccine to enhance the body's immunity against cancer cells.
High-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell rescue are the first treatment steps. Autologous stem cell
rescue involves the use of the patient's own blood to obtain stem cells, the precursors of all blood cells. Stem cells
will regenerate bone marrow function in the patient after high-dose chemotherapy.
Because high-dose chemotherapy will destroy the patient's bone marrow, stem cells are collected after a small
dose of chemotherapy and growth factors. The purified cells are frozen in liquid nitrogen for later use.
Metastatic breast cancer recurs in up to 90 percent of cases after high-dose therapy. To combat the recurrence of
disease, a vaccine, called an anti-idiotypic monoclonal antibody, is administered as the second component of the
new treatment. Developed by Foon and colleague Malaya Chatterjee, Ph.D., professor of internal medicine, UK
College of Medicine, the vaccine mimics a protein found on tumor cell surfaces in order to stimulate an immune
response in the body.
The patient's body is unable to recognize tumor cells as foreign, and therefore does not generate an immune
response against the cancer. The vaccine lets the body recognize cancer cells as foreign and to mount an immune
response against them. Accordingly, use of the vaccine after a transplant - when the volume of residual tumor cells
is relatively low - may be the ideal situation.
However, an inevitable period of severe suppression in the patient's immune system is seen following a stem cell
transplant. Until the immune system fully recovers, the vaccine likely would not stimulate the patient's re-emerging
immune defense mechanisms against the cancer. In light of this fact, the patient's immune system is stimulated by
the vaccine before stem cell collection. Cells that "remember" immunity are, therefore, collected with the stem
cells. The patient receives these with the stem cell transplant after high-dose chemotherapy.
Supplemental vaccinations begin again about one week after the transplant and will continue once a month for up
to two years.
The treatment plan:
Vaccine administered to stimulate immune cells
Chemotherapy and growth factors stimulate stem cell growth
Stem cells are collected
High-dose chemotherapy
Stem cell transplant
Vaccine readministered one week after transplant
Vaccine continues once a month for up to two years
Criteria for women to participate in the study:
No more than 70 years old
Have proven metastatic breast cancer
Breast cancer must not involve the brain or bone marrow
Must have responded to conventional chemotherapy given after diagnosis of metastases
Are otherwise fit <<
If someone intend to call Company, should ask additional info for this trial.
Miljenko |
