Dendritic cell vaccines show promise for breast cancer therapy.

2004 JUL 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Dendritic cell vaccines show promise for breast cancer therapy.

According to published research from Australia, "The long-held belief that breast cancer is a weakly immunogenic tumor and a poor candidate for immunotherapy should be reappraised. There is ample evidence for the existence of an immune response, which is, however, attenuated by multiple inhibitory factors. Many tumor-associated antigens (TAA) have been identified in breast cancer, some of which appear to play a critical role in tumorigenesis and may be attractive targets for immunotherapy."

"There is evidence for DC recruitment and activation within breast cancers, and the presence of intratumoral activated DCs impacts favorably upon survival," said C. P. Allan and colleagues at the Mater Medical Research Institute. "Furthermore, there is a striking paucity of activated DCs within the primary draining or sentinel lymph nodes of breast cancers. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) are often documented, however, their function is impaired by inhibitory cytokines, increased regulatory T lymphocyte activity, tumor cell MHC molecule alterations, and aberrant Fas ligand expression, amongst others."

"DCs are recognized as one of the critical interfaces between a cancer and the immune system, and have emerged as a promising ...