Clinical studies of vaccines targeting breast cancer reviewed.

2003 NOV 5 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Investigators have published a review of clinical studies of vaccines targeting breast cancer in a recent issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

"Many clinical studies have been undertaken to assess the therapeutic potential of vaccination and have included a large variety of cancer immunogens. Most of these studies involved patients with metastatic cancer, which is characterized by the most aggressive malignant cells, the longest lasting disease, and the failure of all standard cytotoxic treatments," scientists in the United States report.

"The presence of tumor over long periods and the toxicity of previous treatments tend to negatively affect immune responsiveness to tumor antigens presented by the vaccine," said Byung K. Ko and collaborators at the University of Texas, University of Washington, and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "In this review, we analyze the ability of past and current vaccine therapies to induce clinical responses in breast cancer. To date, clinical responses have been observed by using vaccines targeting HER-2/neu protein, human telomerase ...