http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1008763,00.html

Lung cancer tumors wiped out by vaccine. Hope for ya shaggy!

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Lung and kidney cancer vaccine breakthrough
By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor


 
A vaccine designed to treat lung cancer wiped out the disease in a few patients and slowed its spread in others, new results show.



The study is the second in a week to show benefits from cancer vaccines. In the other, survival after surgery for kidney cancer was enhanced by the use of a vaccine.

Vaccine studies are a growing area of cancer therapy. Unlike most vaccines, which seek to prevent disease, cancer vaccines are used as treatments. The idea is to boost the body's own ability to eliminate tumours.

In the lung cancer trial, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 43 patients with non small-cell lung cancer were injected in the arm and leg every two weeks for three months with a vaccine that included cells from their own tumours.

The cells were modified to contain a gene, CM-CSF, which alters the surface of the cells to make them more recognisable to the immune system.

The vaccine was developed by researchers at Baylor University Medical Centre in Dallas, and the research was funded in part by CellGenesis, a pharmaceutical company that hopes to produce the vaccine.

Three patients with advanced stage cancer had no recurrence of the disease for three years after the treatment. In another 30 patients with advanced disease, the tumours grew less quickly, but in ten patients with early-stage disease there was no effect.

"The results are very promising for patients with non-small cell lung cancer, which is frequently resistant to chemotherapy," said Dr John Nemunaitis, a Baylor oncologist who led the study.

Non-small cell lung cancer is a leading cause of death, the commonest form of cancer caused by smoking. It is often difficult to treat, and patients normally die within eight to nine months.

Chemotherapy is successful in about 3 per cent of patients. "The most exciting thing is in those who responded to the vaccine, it was complete," Dr Nemunaitis said. "It's given us a lot of encouragement."

Dr Richard Sullivan, Head of Clinical Programmes for UK Cancer Research agreed that the results were encouraging.

"Lung cancer treatment is a big problem," he said. "It's an aggressive cancer that takes years to come up.

"Chemotherapy is very toxic and to kill the cancer, you often end up killing the person.

"Getting the immune system to recognise the lung cancer is an exciting prospect. It is very promising, there's no doubt about it.

"This is a small trial, it needs to be replicated in a large study before we can be sure that it will be beneficial to everybody and is not just a fluke.

"You can get results by chance which have nothing to do with the reality."

A second success with a cancer vaccine is reported in this week's Lancet. A team led by Dieter Jocham from the University of Lubeck Medical School treated 379 patients from 55 medical centres in Germany for kidney cancer.

The results show that five years after their operations, 77 per cent of those given the vaccine, and 68 per cent of the control group are still alive. The vaccine was well-tolerated, with only a few adverse reactions. Although the improvement is modest, it is encouraging.

Mayer Fishman and Scott Antonia from H Lee Moffitt Cancer Centre and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, say in an accompanying editorial that it is an 'immunological breakthrough'.

In future, they say, such additional treatments may become a routine part of kidney cancer treatment and contribute to increasing survival from the disease.

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whoa, that sa really good idea mabus. i might "join the army" every year, just for a check-up 

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Don't forget ya can "join the navy" or "join the coast guard" or "join the marines" if you think you need a second opinion.