Therapeutic polyvalent vaccine prolongs overall survival.

2002 DEC 11 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Canvaxin, a therapeutic polyvalent vaccine (PV), has been shown to significantly improve overall survival of patients with metastatic melanoma.

The aim of D.L. Morton and colleagues, St. John's Health Center, John Wayne Cancer Institute, Santa Monica, California, was "to determine whether adjuvant postoperative active specific immunotherapy with ... Canvaxin can prolong survival following complete resection of melanoma metastatic to regional nodes (American Joint Committee on Cancer [AJCC] stage III melanoma)."

"Despite complete lymphadenectomy," noted the researchers, "5-year overall survival (OS) for patients with melanoma metastatic to regional lymph nodes is only 20% to 50%, depending on the number of tumor-involved nodes."

In their study, "Patients who received PV between 1984 and 1998 were compared with patients who did not receive PV postsurgical therapy between 1971 and 1998. The seven covariates recently defined by the AJCC Melanoma Staging Committee (number of metastatic nodes, palpable status, ulceration, age, primary site, pT stage, and gender) were included by Cox regression in a multivariate model of OS. A computerized program matched PV and non-PV patients by these covariates.

"Of 2,602 patients who underwent complete lymphadenectomy for AJCC stage III melanoma with regional nodal metastases and were followed up by the same team of oncologists between 1971 and 1998, 935 received PV and ...