CTL precursor-oriented peptide vaccine promising for colorectal cancer.

2004 JUL 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Results from a phase I trial indicate some benefit from cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) precursor-oriented peptide vaccines for colorectal carcinoma patients.

According to recent research from Japan, "In most protocols of peptide-based vaccination, no consideration has been paid to whether or not peptide-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) precursors are pre-existent in cancer patients. Initiation of immune boosting through vaccination is better than that of immune priming to induce prompt and strong immunity. In this study, 10 human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen-A24+ patients with advanced colorectal carcinomas were treated with up to four peptides that had been positive for pre-vaccination measurement of peptide-specific CTL precursors in the circulation (CTL precursor-oriented peptide vaccine)."

"No severe adverse effect was observed, although local pain and fever of grade I or II were observed," said Y. Sato and collaborators at Hokkaido University and Kurume University. "Post-vaccination peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from five patients demonstrated an increased peptide-specific immune response to the peptides. Increased CTL response to cancer cells was detected in post-vaccination PBMCs of five patients."

"Antipeptide immunoglobulin G became detectable in ...