Drug Topics - March 10, 2008 - (Page 23) DRUG TOPICS 23 Rx Care toma, a deadly form of brain cancer. The study, an expansion of an earlier Phase I trial, will examine addition of the vaccine following standard treatment with surgery and chemotherapy. “Everything now depends on something in addition to surgery so that these tumors do not recur, so a cancer vaccine like this may make a difference in extending life and maintaining a good quality of life,” said Patrick J. Kelley, M.D., chairman of the department of neurosurgery at NYU School of Medicine. The brain vaccine is a form of individualized therapy—it will be made from the tumors and dendritic cells, a powerful type of immune cell, of each patient. Another vaccine also being investigated in patients with glioblastoma is CDX-110 (Celldex Therapeutics). The multicenter trial of the vaccine will be conducted in two phases—with approximately 90 patients participating in the first part, and if results show an improvement in disease-free survival for CDX-110-treated patients, then an additional 285 patients will be enrolled. Preventing prostate cancer? The emphasis these days seems to be on therapeutic cancer vaccines, but what if a vaccine could actually prevent the development of cancer? Researchers may have accomplished just that—according to a report published in the February 1, 2008, issue of Cancer Research. A prostate cancer vaccine halted progression of the disease in 90% of the 20 mice who received it, reported W. Martin Kast, Ph.D, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and the study’s lead author. The investigators, in their report, suggest the same strategy might work for men with elevated levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA), a protein associated with the cancer. THE AUTHOR is a writer and hospital pharmacist based in New Jersey.
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