Brain tumor vaccine

CLEVELAND -- University Hospitals Case Medical Center begins new brain tumor vaccine trial.

Researchers in the Neurological Institute and Ireland Cancer Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center are in late-stage trials for an experimental vaccine for the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM), the most aggressive form of brain cancer.

The new vaccine ? CDX-110 ? attempts to marshal the power of the patients? own immune system to fight against remnants of the tumor which typically remain in the brain following surgery and radiation treatment.

So far, the vaccine has been used to treat about 70 patients nationally with virtually no side-effects. Currently 14 patients have enrolled at UH, but only one has received the vaccine treatment. UH is the only site in Ohio to have opened the study and one of 20 national sites.

At UH, the patients currently have had surgery and are now going through radiation treatment to shrink their tumors. They will then receive the vaccine to induce an immune response against the tumor.

According to UH neurosurgeon Andrew Sloan, M.D., early results, although not published, seem encouraging. Half of the patients receiving the vaccine have survived for more than 30 months after treatment.

?This is impressive considering that survival after standard treatment is less than a year. Even more impressive is the finding that 65 percent of patients treated with the vaccine were still alive after two years which is very rare for patients treated with conventional radiation and chemotherapy alone. In fact, several patients treated with the experimental vaccine have survived for more than three years,? said Dr. Sloan.

Normally, vaccines are used to prevent disease, but in this case, the vaccine is used to jump-start an immune response against an existing tumor.

The vaccine is designed to teach the body?s immune system to attack the tumor without attacking the normal brain cells. Another advantage of the vaccine compared to other experimental treatments is that there are few side-effects to vaccines.

Dr. Sloan, an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Case Western Reserve University with an NIH-funded grant to study the use of vaccines in brain tumors, said, ?This therapy has the potential to help not only patients suffering from this deadly disease, but if it lives up to its promise, it could potentially be used for other cancers as well.?

Glioblastoma is the most common form of adult brain cancer. It strikes more than 10,000 adults annually in the United States. It is highly malignant and the average survival is usually less than a year even after maximal surgical resection and radiation. Even the addition of a chemotherapy drug only adds an average of two months survival to patients? lives.

For more information call 216 844 6054.

Hear more from Dr. Sloan by clicking on video.