Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Treatment Trains Immune System To Kill Cancer

Posted by kdawson on from the going-after-the-root dept.

Al writes "A vaccine in clinical trials at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine triggers the human immune system to attack a faulty protein that's often abundant in colorectal cancer tissue and precancerous tissue. If it works as hoped, it could remove the need for repeated colonoscopies in patients at high risk for developing colorectal cancer. The vaccine has already proven safe in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. It works by spurring the body to manufacture antibodies against the abnormal version of a mucous protein called MUC1. While moderate amounts of the protein are found in the lining of normal intestines, high levels of a defective form of MUC1 are present in about half of advanced adenomas and the majority of colorectal cancers."

9 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Beware of the hype by Scubaraf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I laud this development - we have had multiple form of immune therapy for cancer - including tumor vaccines, cancer antigen vaccines, immunostimulatory drugs, and anti-tolerance drugs for years now. There are some responders, but this field has generally been a disappointment. here's to hoping we eventually figure out how to harness this approach.

    1. Re:Beware of the hype by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well the process of science is not a perfect one. We get leads we follow them and hit dead ends. Sometimes they get really close... Sometime you need to go back a few steps and retweek it sometimes you need to go to the starting board. I am sure any break-threw we find, there will be years of research that goes on, with plenty of failures.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Beware of the hype by mldi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I laud this development - we have had multiple form of immune therapy for cancer - including tumor vaccines, cancer antigen vaccines, immunostimulatory drugs, and anti-tolerance drugs for years now. There are some responders, but this field has generally been a disappointment. here's to hoping we eventually figure out how to harness this approach.

      Are we going to stop research? Research needs grants, and people don't give grants unless you publish papers showing how your research shows some promise. It may be baby steps in a thousand directions, but they all count, and it will eventually lead to something more productive.

      --
      If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
    3. Re:Beware of the hype by techno-vampire · · Score: 3, Funny
      anti-tolerance drugs

      Is that what religious/political extremists take to make them act the way they do?

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    4. Re:Beware of the hype by physburn · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yes, Immune Therapy has been tried for years, but that doesn't mean it will never amount to anything. It only means that its hard to get right. The first batch of Cancer, Immune Therapies are only now coming to market. One example is Provenge, for otherwise untreatable Prostate Cancer, by the Dendreon Corporation, its still awaiting FDA approval, in the first of its phase III trials, turned a 3 year survivial rate from around %20 to around %40, and added a mean 3 months of life. Thats hardly a cure all, but it is significant. If approved Provenge will probably be the first Cancer Immune Therapy on the market, likely leading to many of Vaccines for many other Tumors over the next ten or so years. (Drugs take that long or longer to market unfortunately).

      ---

      Cancer Treatment Feed @ Feed Distiller

  2. Re:This treatment... by sys.stdout.write · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't believe people have actually claimed that the quality of Slashdot comments has gone down in recent years.

    How could you possibly claim that with gems like these?

  3. Re:please sign me up! by LurkerXXX · · Score: 5, Informative

    You go here: http://clinicaltrials.gov/

    And find the trial you are interested in, and see if you meet the requirements.

    In the case of this one:

    http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00773097?term=colorectal+vaccine&rank=2

    Inclusion Criteria:

                Age 40 - 70 years of age.

                            History of any of the following conditions (operative notes, endoscopy reports, and/or pathology reports must be reviewed locally to confirm that the candidate meets at least one of the following entry criteria).
                                  1. Colorectal adenoma(s) 1 cm in maximal diameter
                                  2. Colorectal adenoma(s) with villous or tubulovillous histology
                                  3. Colorectal adenoma(s) with high-grade dysplasia
                        o Willingness to avoid pregnancy or impregnate (see below) for the period of active study (1 year).
                        o ECOG performance status 0 or 1
                        o Hemoglobin greater than 95% of the lower limit of institutional normal. Platelets 100,000/L.
                        o AST (SGOT), ALT (SGPT), alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin, BUN, creatinine 1.5x upper limit of institutional normal.
                        o ANA 1:160

    Exclusion Criteria:

            * Receiving any other investigational agents.
            * Presence of an active acute or chronic infection
            * History of allergic reactions attributed to compounds of similar chemical or biologic composition to the study agents.
            * History of heritable cancer syndrome (FAP, HNPCC)
            * Patients with a history of auto-immune disease such as, but not restricted to, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, scleroderma, or multiple sclerosis.
            * History of malignancy 5 years prior to the Registration/Randomization evaluation, excluding non-melanoma skin cancer.
            * Any use of oral corticosteroids 12 weeks prior to Registration/Randomization.
            * Current or planned use of immunomodulators including: Remicade, 6-MP (Mercaptopurine), Methotrexate, cyclosporine, or other immunomodulatory drugs.
            * Pregnant women, because the teratogenic or abortifacient effects of the study agents remain incompletely defined. Breastfeeding women, because there is an unknown but potential risk for adverse events in nursing infants secondary to treatment of the mother with the study agents.

  4. Natural Selection by minorgroove · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Won't this only provide selective pressure for those mutant cells to make another variant of Mucin1? That is exactly how aggressive cancers form in the first place.

  5. If it walks like a duck... by nietsch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Right. A revolutionary diet therapy. Someone trying to cure cancer by non-medicinal means. So he is practising medicine without being a doctor? There is a name for that: quack. And people like you that (pretend to) believe in it and preach its blessings are instrumental for mr Gersons paycheck.
    There is a very good reason alternative medicine is not accepted: it does not work. If you want it to be accepted medically; do the legwork and prove that it works in reproducible double blind tests. If you just want to make a living deceiving other people, you post references on the internets.

    --
    This space is intentionally staring blankly at you