Two-stage immunotherapy for ovarian cancer
In most patients, ovarian cancer is diagnosed at late stages. Many of them develop relapses within two years after the disease is detected, while most die within 5 years.
Developed by specialists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, working under the guidance of Dr. Lana Kandalaft, the immunotherapy strategy for the treatment of this disease consists of two stages: vaccination with dendritic cells and T-cell therapy.
To carry out the described strategy, dendritic cells were isolated from the blood of 31 patients with recurrent progressive ovarian cancer of stages 3 or 4. These cells were cultured in the presence of the patients' own tumor tissue removed during surgery.
After the introduction of the vaccine, clinical improvements and the formation of an antitumor immune response were registered in 19 patients. At the end of the study, 8 of them showed no signs of the disease and continued to receive supportive vaccination. In 1 of these 8 patients, there were no signs of the disease for 42 months after vaccination.
11 patients who responded to treatment, but had signs of residual disease, underwent the second stage of immunotherapy. At this stage, the researchers isolated T-lymphocytes from the women's blood, stimulated their division in the laboratory, and then injected the increased population back into the bloodstream of the patients. Due to the fact that T-lymphocytes had previously been "trained" by dendritic cells injected in the form of a vaccine, their return to the bloodstream repeatedly strengthened the antitumor immune response. As a result, 7 out of 11 patients stabilized the disease, and one went into complete remission.
According to Dr. Kandalaft, while vaccination with dendritic cells led to clinical improvements in 61% of cases, its combination with T-cell therapy increased this figure to 75%. Currently, researchers continue to work on improving the methodology of vaccine production in order to increase its effectiveness.
During the clinical trial, immunotherapy was performed in combination with bevacizumab, a drug that suppresses the growth of blood vessels. This combination has demonstrated a powerful antitumor effect. In the future, the authors plan to test the effectiveness of other combined strategies to combat ovarian cancer.
Presentation by Lana E. Kandalaft et al. Autologous whole-tumor antigen vaccination in combination with adaptive T cell therapy for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer is presented at the annual congress of the American Association for Cancer Research, held April 6-10, 2013 in Washington.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the American Association for Cancer Research:
Novel Two-step Immunotherapy Showed Promise for Patients With Recurrent Ovarian Cancer.
12.04.2013