United States: A clinical trial cancer vaccine technique can rapidly rebuild a person’s immunity system against glioma, the most dangerous and fatal brain cancer cases.
Innovative Vaccine Technology
Cancer vaccine technology mimics that of the COVID vaccine. Still, instead of using a generic one, it is customized with the patient’s own tumor cells, which are then used to create a vaccine, researchers note, as reported by HealthDay.
According to scientists, the vaccine program trains the immune system on recognizing tumor cells as a foreign virus, eliciting an aggressive attack against the cancer.
Rapid Immune Activation
Among the most outstanding results was how soon the one-time injection with the vaccine turns the immune system into antibodies against a brain tumor, as pointed out by the senior researcher, Dr. Elias Sayour, a pediatric oncologist with UF Health, who was the first to introduce the new vaccine.
Four adult patients participated in the first-ever human clinical trial, and the vaccination sparked a fast and seemingly successful immune response against cancer.
“In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors shifting from what we refer to as ‘cold’—immune cold, very few immune cells, very silenced immune response—to ‘hot,’ very active immune response,” Sayour said in a university news release.
“That was very surprising given how quickly this happened, and what that told us is that we were able to activate the early part of the immune system very rapidly against these cancers, and that’s critical to unlocking the later effects of the immune response,” Sayour added.
Encouraging Trial Results
The data shows parallels to the results of the ten pet dogs with brain tumors used as test subjects at the initial stage and the lab mice. Researchers noted that dogs, being the only other animal besides humans with brains more similar to humans than other animals in developing brain tumors, provide a natural setting in which to try out brain tumor therapies.
The vaccine is going to switch to a phase 1 pediatric clinical test for brain cancer, researchers stated.
The trial will involve 24 patients, either adults or children, and will confirm the results of the previous Phase I investigational study.
Potential Lifesaving Impact
Glioblastoma has an appalling mortality rate with an average life expectancy of about a year and a half. Now, doctors employ surgical, radiological, and chemotherapeutic treatment options to deal with the tumor.
The four patients either lived disease-free longer than expected or just survived the longer duration they haven’t, but researchers said it’s too early to draw firm conclusions about the vaccine’s efficiency.
The average lifespan of the trial dogs was 139 days, with the respective survival average of about 30 to 60 days for dogs suffering from this kind of tumor.
The new finding was reported on May 1 in Cell Journal.
The novel vaccine in question is a patient-specific drug that uses the genetic material extracted from a surgically removed tumor.
Researchers noted that the vaccine is built with a unique delivery system that has to work well to make it more effective.
“Instead of us injecting single particles, we’re injecting clusters of particles that are wrapping around each other like onions, like a bag full of onions,” Sayour said. “And we’ve done that in the context of cancer because these clusters alert the immune system in a much more profound way than single particles would.”
As a result, the vaccine generates “these really significant and rapid immune responses that we’re seeing across animals and humans,” said researcher Dr. Duane Mitchell, director of the University of Florida’s Brain Tumor Immunology Program.
Future Outlook
Sayour stated that if the vaccination is effective, it may provide a fresh approach to the fight against cancer, as reported by HealthDay.
“I am hopeful that this could synergize with other immunotherapies and perhaps unlock those immunotherapies,” Sayour said. We showed in this paper that you can actually have synergy with other types of immunotherapies, so maybe now we can have a combination approach to immunotherapy.”