Increased Patient Survival Follows Treatment For Metastatic Disease.(Brief Article)

2001 JUL 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

Demonstrating new success in cancer immunotherapy, researchers reported that they have increased the survival time of cancer patients using novel therapeutic vaccines.

Data show, for the first time, that human T-cell immune responses induced by therapeutic vaccines result in increased survival of patients with late-stage metastatic cancers. The Phase I/II trial conducted at Georgetown University's Lombardi Cancer Center tested two cancer vaccines developed by Therion Biologics of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in collaboration with the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Aventis Pasteur.

These vaccines, vaccinia-CEA (V) and ALVAC-CEA (A), were used in a combination regimen known as a "prime-boost" protocol in late-stage cancer patients. Five of nine patients treated with sequential vaccinations of vaccinia-CEA and ALVAC-CEA (VAAA) not only showed increased immune responses, but also remained alive two years out compared to zero long-term survivors in other treatment groups. The study's principal investigator, John Marshall, MD, of Georgetown University Medical Center presented the data at the 2001 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting.

"Therapeutic cancer vaccines have long been believed to hold great promise. Our data today demonstrate the first link between the ability of vaccines to elicit a strong, specific T-cell response against advanced metastatic cancers and subsequently increase patient survival," said Marshall. "The current life expectancy for these late-stage cancer patients is less than one year, so to see more than 50% of the patients treated with CEA vaccines alive two years later is striking, even in this small study population."

"These findings strongly support the utility and future studies of Therion's therapeutic vaccines in late-stage cancer patients, the most difficult patient population to treat," said Dennis Panicali, PhD, Therion Biologics. "They also validate the ability of our prime-boost products to trigger and sustain powerful ...