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Brain Tumor Vaccine Shows Promising Results
ScienceDaily is reporting that a new vaccine used in the treatment of a cancer found primarliy in the brain is showing promising results after an initial trial at the University of California. "Of the 12 patients being treated, eight can currently be evaluated for overall survival, while four are still receiving treatment. Seven out of the eight patients have exceeded the historical median benchmark of 6.5 months survival from time of recurrence. The investigators will continue to follow the patients for overall survival. Based on these results, a larger, multi-center phase 2 study is planned for late 2007."
had to be said!!!
A vaccine is any substance that stimulates your immune system to attack a pathogen specifically. It stimulates what is known as the adaptive immune system, which is the part of the immune system that recognizes a specific infection. For example, you may be infected with Hepatitis A, and that generates a nonspecific inflammatory response. Later on, your T and B cells "learn" to specifically begin attacking the Hepatitis A virus. If you get infected with Hepatitis B, you still have the nonspecific inflammatory response, but your learned response against Hepatitis A doesn't help here; it's very specific for Hepatitis A.
In contrast, most drugs don't prime your immune system against specific proteins on the pathogen. Chemotherapy drugs tend to just kill rapidly dividing cells non-specifically; you get nausea because the normal cells in your gut are also killed. There are some drugs such as monoclonal antibodies that can specifically attack and kill the pathogenic cells, but they don't work by priming your immune cells.
It's a misconception that all vaccines prevent you from getting the disease. The BCG vaccine for TB doesn't really prevent you from getting infected with TB chronically; it prevents you from getting a really severe kind of acute TB. In fact, some vaccines are actually administered after you've already been infected. For example, the rabies vaccine causes a brisk immune response against rabies. You usually receive it *after* you've been bitten by a rabid animal, so there is already rabies virus replicating within your cells. It helps you clear the virus that is already there.
I hope this helps.
As someone who has a brain tumor (not a glioma, but still malignant) I keep a sharp eye out for new developments. It seems like every other day a new "cure" is announced, but there is a LOT more work to do. Still, this is a good sign and the more research that goes on the better. Even if this ultimately doesn't prove to be as big a help as it initially appears to be, its one step closer. One thing that these types of treatments DO do, which is often overlooked, is prolong the life (And improve the quality of life) of people with the disease, making it something that is "managed" like say Diabetes as opposed to just being a death sentence. I'm 4 and a half years out of what my doctor told me was a 3-5 year life expectency, and I fully intend to beat that by a wide margin.