Results from recent studies verifying the safety of a novel DC based immunotherapy designed to be used as a vaccine against mesothelioma found it was safe enough to go on to the next phase of testing. Indeed, tests show that the form of immunotherapy combats mesothelioma tumors directly.
The vaccine was created by scientists in the Netherlands and was designed in such a way that it uses the patient’s dendritic cells (cells within the immune system that pass antigen material along to other immune system components for isolation and removal) with antigen material from the patient’s existing tumors. This creates an automatic immune response—the patient’s body begins to attack the tumors.
The results of the study were published in their approved state online and will be in a print edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Results show a positive T-cell reaction in 10 of the studies subjects.
This is the first time that dendritic cells have been exploited in a vaccine to fight mesothelioma. “The possibility to harness the potency and specificity of the immune system underlies the growing interest in cancer immunotherapy,” said Dr. Joachim Aerts, a co-author of the journal article.
The advantage of this type of therapy over traditional mesothelioma treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery is that it is designed to specifically target the mesothelioma tumors and nothing else. If proven effective in future testing, the vaccine could be used in the general population to help slow and possibly even reverse the process of tumor growth in mesothelioma patients.
Mesothelioma is caused when fibrous particles invade the soft tissue of the lung or digestive tract and cause tumors or fibrotic cysts to grow. As of yet, there is no cure for mesothelioma and once diagnosed most patients the median survival rate is about 18 months.
If successful, this new immune system treatment could not only be used to treat mesothelioma patients but perhaps even be developed into a vaccine that would keep tumors from forming in people exposed to hazardous carcinogens.
For more information and detailed reports on this type of therapy, click here:
Immunotherapy of murine malignant mesothelioma using tumor lysate-pulsed dendritic cells
or
Consolidative dendritic cell-based immunotherapy elicits cytotoxicity against malignant mesothelioma
No comments:
Post a Comment