Individual brain cancer vaccine successfully tested in the USA
The sea urchin vaccine in the brain
Larisa Aksenova, Newspaper.Ru
Cancer immunotherapy was named by Science magazine as the main scientific breakthrough of the year, namely the success of clinical trials of anti-cancer vaccines that incite a person's own immune system to fight a cancerous tumor. An article about the next success of this direction was published in the journal Neuro-Oncology (Bloch et al., Heat-shock protein peptide complex–96 vaccination for recurrent glioblastoma: a phase II, single-arm trial).
Glioblastoma multiforme (MFG) is found in 15% of all cases of brain tumors. It develops rapidly and reaches gigantic proportions before the first symptoms appear. The age category of patients with MFH is from 45 to 70 years. More often, the disease develops in men. With surgical intervention, this type of tumor cannot be completely removed, since it invades healthy brain tissue and often gives repeated growth, relapses. There are about 10-11 cells in a glioblastoma, and even with the most thorough surgery, no more than 10 9 of them can be removed. The remaining ones resume growth over time. As I told the correspondent of "Gazeta.En" neurosurgeon Andrey Golanov, head of the Gamma Knife Center at Burdenko Research Institute, "removing glioblastoma from the brain is like removing a sea urchin."
Significant progress in the treatment of glioblastoma has not been achieved in recent decades. The life expectancy of people with this disease is a maximum of three to five years, and for secondary MFG, half of the patients live from three to nine months (this is called median survival).
Significant progress in the treatment of glioblastoma has not been achieved in recent decades. The life expectancy of people with this disease is a maximum of three to five years, and for secondary MFG, half of the patients live from three to nine months (this is called median survival).
From 2007 to 2011, scientists from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago conducted clinical trials (phase II) of the vaccine on volunteer patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme after removal. A total of 41 people took part in the study during this period. Six months after the start of treatment, 90% of patients were alive, a year later – 30%. These figures, according to scientists, turned out to be about one and a half times higher than with standard treatment.
American scientists have also begun large-scale trials, the purpose of which was to study the joint action of the vaccine and one of the anticancer drugs.
The uniqueness of the vaccine used in the study is that it is created individually against cancer cells of each individual patient. Thus, this is an example of a personalized approach in oncology.
The vaccine is a protein complex, conventionally called NSRPS-96. The mechanism of its action is based on the activation of T-cell specific immunity. Scientists from various laboratories of the world began to pay close attention to NSRS-96 in 2001, when they studied its effect against many malignant human tumors for which no effective treatment methods were found, for example, grade III renal cell carcinoma. Perhaps, if it is possible to convincingly prove the effectiveness and safety, to choose the optimal doses and methods of vaccine administration, NSRPS-96 in the near future will become an official means of adjuvant (auxiliary) therapy, helping to destroy the remaining glioblastoma cells after surgery.
An attempt to create a vaccine against MFG was also made in 2008 in Argentina. But then they used a slightly different approach. Hybrid cells (hybridomas) obtained by fusion of B-lymphocytes and tumor cells were used as a vaccine. The experiment was not successful because the injected cell structure caused inflammation of the meninges in patients.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru23.12.2013