Health & Medicine
Breast Cancer Vaccine is Safe in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Dec 01, 2014 11:55 AM EST
A breast cancer vaccine shows some promise for the future. Scientists have found that the vaccine is safe in patients with metastatic breast cancer and that the vaccine primed patients' immune systems to attack tumor cells and helped slow the cancer's progression.
The new vaccine, which was tested in an early clinical trial, caused the body's immune system to home in on a protein called mammaglobin-A, which can be found almost exclusively in the breast tissue. The protein's role in healthy tissue is unclear, but breast tumors express it at abnormally high levels. In fact, it's expressed in up to 80 percent of breast cancers.
The vaccine primes a certain type of white blood cell to seek out and destroy cells with the mammaglobin-A protein. This makes it effective in helping those with tumors that produce mammaglobin-A, though less effective with those with tumors that do not produce this protein.
A total of 14 patients with metastatic breast cancer that expressed mammaglobin-A were vaccinated. Patients experienced few side effects, reporting just eight events that were mild or moderate, which included rash, tenderness at the vaccination site and mild flu-like symptoms. No severe or life-threatening side effects occurred.
While this trial was designed to test the vaccine's safety, preliminary evidence also revealed that the vaccine slowed the progression of the cancer.
"Despite the weakened immune system in these patients, we did observe a biologic response to the vaccine while analyzing immune cells in their blood samples," said William Gillanders, one of the researchers, in a news release. "That's very encouraging. We also saw preliminary evidence of improved outcome, with modestly longer progression-free survival."
Currently, the researchers are planning a larger clinical trial to test the vaccine in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients. In theory, these patients will have a more robust immune system than patients who have already undergone extensive cancer therapy.
"If we give the vaccine to patients at the beginning of treatment, the immune systems should not be compromised like in patients with metastatic disease," said Gillanders. "We also will do more informative immune monitoring than we did in this preliminary trial."
The findings are published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
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First Posted: Dec 01, 2014 11:55 AM EST
A breast cancer vaccine shows some promise for the future. Scientists have found that the vaccine is safe in patients with metastatic breast cancer and that the vaccine primed patients' immune systems to attack tumor cells and helped slow the cancer's progression.
The new vaccine, which was tested in an early clinical trial, caused the body's immune system to home in on a protein called mammaglobin-A, which can be found almost exclusively in the breast tissue. The protein's role in healthy tissue is unclear, but breast tumors express it at abnormally high levels. In fact, it's expressed in up to 80 percent of breast cancers.
The vaccine primes a certain type of white blood cell to seek out and destroy cells with the mammaglobin-A protein. This makes it effective in helping those with tumors that produce mammaglobin-A, though less effective with those with tumors that do not produce this protein.
A total of 14 patients with metastatic breast cancer that expressed mammaglobin-A were vaccinated. Patients experienced few side effects, reporting just eight events that were mild or moderate, which included rash, tenderness at the vaccination site and mild flu-like symptoms. No severe or life-threatening side effects occurred.
While this trial was designed to test the vaccine's safety, preliminary evidence also revealed that the vaccine slowed the progression of the cancer.
"Despite the weakened immune system in these patients, we did observe a biologic response to the vaccine while analyzing immune cells in their blood samples," said William Gillanders, one of the researchers, in a news release. "That's very encouraging. We also saw preliminary evidence of improved outcome, with modestly longer progression-free survival."
Currently, the researchers are planning a larger clinical trial to test the vaccine in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients. In theory, these patients will have a more robust immune system than patients who have already undergone extensive cancer therapy.
"If we give the vaccine to patients at the beginning of treatment, the immune systems should not be compromised like in patients with metastatic disease," said Gillanders. "We also will do more informative immune monitoring than we did in this preliminary trial."
The findings are published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone