TA90-IC Marker Indicates Clinical Efficacy Of CancerVax.(Brief Article)

2001 JUN 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by N.R. Saltmarsh, staff medical writer - TA90, a tumor-associated glycoprotein antigen expressed on most melanoma cells, is a proven marker of subclinical tumor burden in melanoma.

Now, a new study in the Annals of Surgical Oncology supports the use of TA90 antigen-antibody immune complex (IC) to gauge the efficacy of the CancerVax vaccine.

"We hypothesized that the induction of TA90-IC during post-operative adjuvant CancerVax therapy might indicate vaccine-mediated immune destruction of subclinical melanoma cells with release of TA90, and thereby serve as a surrogate marker of vaccine efficacy," said G.J. Tsioulias and colleagues.

They studied 219 melanoma patients who received CancerVax, a polyvalent allogeneic whole-cell vaccine, with bacillus Calmette-Guerin after complete tumor resection, analyzing serum samples before and two, four, eight, 12, and 16 weeks after initiation of CancerVax therapy. TA90-IC was considered positive at >=.410 and negative at

During CancerVax therapy, all 51 patients who were originally TA90-IC-positive remained positive, while 79 TA90-IC-negative patients (47%) seroconverted. Compared with initially positive patients, seroconverted patients had higher rates of disease-free survival (59% versus 32%) and overall survival (78% versus 63%) at two years, reported Tsioulias and coworkers. ("Serum TA90 antigen-antibody ...