Boosted Immunity Needed For Patients Who Undergo Stem Cell Transplants.(Brief Article)

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

Researchers have begun two innovative stem cell transplant studies that will look at ways to bolster a patient's immune system in an effort to protect the patient from infection and make the transplant itself more effective.

Both studies use a patient's own immune cells, which are collected prior to the transplant, activated, and then re-infused post-transplant. One study also incorporates the injection of a new vaccine for chickenpox that may enhance the immune system's ability to prevent shingles after a transplant.

The University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center and the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center are the only two sites in the U.S. offering these studies to patients suffering from multiple myeloma or chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Both are cancers of the bone marrow that are thought to respond to therapies that stimulate the immune system.

"In the case of myeloma, treatment with high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplant using the patient's own stem cells is considered to be the best therapy currently available," said Aaron Rapoport, MD, associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of Lymphoma-Gene Medicine at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, where the studies will take place. "However, even high-dose therapy is rarely curative and most patients will eventually have recurrence of disease. Our hope with this study is to apply a strategy to boost the immune system after the transplant in order to treat the myeloma or CML and prolong the remission or response that follows."

Physicians are hoping to achieve a higher response rate by collecting and expanding the patient's own cancer- and infection-fighting cells, known as T cells, prior to a stem cell transplant procedure. The immune T cells will be collected shortly after a patient has been diagnosed with myeloma or CML, when those cells will be more plentiful. The cells will then be treated in the lab by mixing them with antibodies (proteins) that bind to important targets (receptors) on the surface of the T cells to stimulate and activate them. This procedure is an attempt to copy what should normally happen when the body encounters foreign cells like cancer cells. The cells are then infused back into the patient after chemotherapy.

"This treatment is thought to provide a critical second signal to the cells that is otherwise lacking in patients ...