Vaccine Research Results Show Hope For Use Of Dendritic Cells.(Brief Article)

2001 APR 11 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

Results from the first-ever study testing the use of dendritic cells in children may offer new hope for a cancer vaccine.

The Phase I study results from research at the University of Michigan Health System were presented March 27, 2001, by James D. Geiger, MD, UMHS assistant professor of surgery and the study's principal investigator, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The research suggests that dendritic cells spiked with cancer proteins from a pediatric patient's own tumor can generate an immune response to the cancer, and may spark stabilization or regression of metastatic, or spreading, cancers. One of the 13 study participants, a 16-year-old with cancer that had spread to her lungs and spine, showed significant tumor regression. Five others saw their disease stabilize.

"We've shown that dendritic cell vaccines seem to have the best potential of all other cancer vaccines we've looked at so far to potentially change the immune response to tumors," Geiger says. "This study is certainly not a home run, but it does give us a lot of encouragement."

Geiger calls dendritic cells the "quarterbacks" of the immune system. They are specialized white blood cells whose job it is to alert the immune system to the presence of invading cancers, bacteria, or viruses so the invaders can be surrounded and destroyed.

In the study performed at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, blood was drawn from each of 13 children, ages three to 17. All of the children had end-stage cancer - relapsed solid malignancies that had failed to be successfully treated with standard therapies. Among the 13 children, a variety of pediatric tumor types were treated including three neuroblastomas, four sarcomas, one osteosarcoma, one fibrosarcoma, two undifferentiated sarcomas, one renal sarcoma, and one Wilms' tumor.