For a Weary World, Some Really Good News!
Posted: January 25, 2012 Filed under: health, medicine, science | Tags: Buffalo NY, cancer vaccine, good news, Roswell Park Cancer Center, scientific discoveries 6 CommentsReady for a game changer in medical science? How about a Cancer Vaccine.
No, this is not fantasy of sci-fi fiction. The Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY has announced a mega-advancement in cancer treatment. The new NY-ESO-1 dendritic cell vaccine will be custom-made to individual patients, removing cancer cells, treating them, and then injecting those cells back into the patient to kill the specific cancer and prevent reoccurrence, an all too frequent situation for the 12 million cancer patients across the country today.
Think about it. Everyone I know has experienced cancer, seen the disease savage loved ones, friends, colleagues or even take a toll in their personal wellbeing. As Siddhartha Mukherjee eloquently wrote in 2010, cancer is ‘The Emperor of all Maladies’ and, in fact, is stitched into our DNA. This vaccine development is extraordinary news and indicates great promise to patients with bladder, brain, breast, esophageal, gastrointestinal, hepatocellular, kidney, lung, melanoma, ovarian, prostate, sarcoma and uterine tumors.
A win in the battle against cancer. It doesn’t get much better that!
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
This is indeed good news, and fascinating research. I really hope it will work!
This could be absolutely huge! What a game changer for millions of people, if it works out.
Yes, this really could be a game changer. On the Roswell Park link there’s a telephone number for patients to call and inquire. I suspect they’ll be flooded with calls. The human trials have been approved and I suspect the excitement has something to do with their animal tests being wildly successful, better than expected.
It’s still early but it’s some of the best news I’ve heard in the field. And if the Center’s expectations are realized? Wow! This is like finding the Holy Grail in medicine. What really surprised me was the number of cancers they listed as responding to the therapy. Normally, these treatments are pretty narrow, cancer-type specific. So, if this truly works, it’s a monumental step forward.
Got my fingers crossed!
That’s a fairly breathless PR article, I’d say. That approach has been studied for many years, has been promising, for the most part, for all of them, and this is one of the earlier ones to reach clinical trials.
The only thing I haven’t seen before is the addition of rapamycin to the treatment regimen. That’s a very interesting wrinkle. Over-reaction by the immune system has been a problematic side effect, and the rapamycin seems to deal with that, which is a real breakthrough.
In terms of application in the real world, I think we can expect to see insurance companies trying to pretend it’s “experimental” for as long as they can. There are quite a few very promising cancer treatments that require individualized cell cultures based on the specific tumor in question, but do you see any of them at your local hospital? No, because they’re hideously expensive.
For all I know, they’re also freaked out about unknown liability issues. Whatever the hangups, these types of treatments could already be much more widely applied than they are, certainly for people with no other options. And they aren’t. (Yes, it’s criminal. Our whole medical system is rather criminal by now.)
Looks similar to Provenge, the individualized treatment for prostate cancer. that treatment works well for most patients in most cases, but unfortunately lengthens overall survival by only a few months.
The link went to info which says its a Phase I trial. That’s the first phase in human testing. Looks like one of the inclusion criteria is prognosis of 6 months or less. Hmmm. That makes me think there are a lot of adverse effects with this tr eatment. Far more trials fail at Phase I or II than go on to Phase III or are brought to market.
I am cautiously optimistic, but it’s probably 5-10 years before being ready for market. Want to look into more details and read the PubMed articles.
It is great to have you commenting again, especially with your connection to the medical field. Thank you for this info Luna.