Article on success and promise of dendritic cell therapy. Article updated June 22, 2011
June 22, 2011: Please read the recently added information about Dr. Robert Gorter and Medical Center in Cologne this information: My experience with dr.Robert Gorter and the Medical Center Cologne. A warning
And click here for addresses of clinics in Germany, where dendritic cell therapy is given .
April 5, 2003: Source: Los Angeles Times website
The Los Angeles Times last week was a nice article on dendritic cell therapy in combination with chemotherapy. This seemed a nice article to read once. Also because a small study of severely ill cancer patients, where all previous treatments had failed, there are 13 volunteers from the 6 to 24 months after starting this combination of vaccine and chemotherapy are still alive 10. According to Dr. Rosenberg, research director, a very remarkable result.
Source: Los Angeles Times website
It seemed like a sensible way to fight Such cancer: enlisting a patient's immune system to attack malignant tumors. Does not necessarily mean easy but sensible - and scientists' Attempts to Elicit Such a tumor-fighting response have fraught with disappointment bone for decades.
Today, however, as scientists gain a deeper understanding of how the human immune system works, a new generation of experimental cancer vaccines are showing promise as safer and more effective treatments Potentially for many types of malignancies.
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FOR THE RECORD
Cancer vaccines - Last week's graphic on cancer vaccines incorrectly Referred to antigens as "antibody-producing." Antigens do not produce antibodies.
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Researchers at major medical centers across the country - Including Several Institutions in Southern California - are reporting Encouraging results in human clinical trials of cancer vaccines. These vaccines currently are available only to patient volunteers in research studies, and scientists have more hurdles to over come before Such treatments become standard practice. If all goes well, however, the first thesis or receive federal approval vaccines Could Within the next few years.
Unlike the scattershot effect of chemotherapy or radiation, Which Kills Both healthy and cancerous tissue with significant side effects for Patient, thesis vaccines are designed to destroy malignant cells only. These therapies do not offer a cure for Patient and They Do not Prevent disease, like conventional vaccines. Hope that experts but eventually thesis Therapeutics powerful enough to destroy May Be tumors and recurrences of the disease preventDefault - without the debilitating side effects of current treatments.
"This opens up a whole new front in the war on cancer," says Dr. Heinz-Josef Lenz, an oncologist at USC / Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles.
Chuck Bittick, for one, believes an experimental colon cancer vaccine That Will help him beat the odds. Last June, Bittick, 63, was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer had spread to That His stomach, a condition is fatal within-That Typically two years. After surgery failed to remove all His cancer, he felt standard therapy did not offer him much hope. So the Yorba Linda man volunteered for a national clinical trial of a cancer vaccine Which was Used in combination with chemotherapy. (Federal rules requirethat Patients Participating in research studies receive proven treatments before They receive experimental therapies.)
For four months, Bittick traveled to USC / Norris for weekly chemotherapy treatments and vaccine injections every six weeks. Within 12 weeks of beginning therapy last September, His cancer disappeared. "I thought my life was going to be over in a couple of years," says Bittick. "Now I just not want to get back to surfing and being normal."
Researchers can not say for sure whether the vaccine eradicated Bittick's tumor. USC's Lenz, a researcher in the trial, said it was "very rare" to see That degree or tumor shrinkage in Such a Short Time with Patients Given chemotherapy alone. "We think the vaccine Worked synergistically with the chemo," he says.
Scientists are testing treatments thesis on Patients with advanced cancers who have exhausted conventional treatments. They are hopeful but Also thesis therapies someday That May Be Used to Treat Cancer Patients at an EARLIER internship When Their immune systems have not depleted by fighting off the bone tumors, or ravaged by toxic chemo-therapies.
"The most benefit from therapies thesis Will Probably be after surgery, to Prevent a relapse," says Dr. Johannes Vieweg, a Urologist and logistic immunogenic at Duke University in Durham, NC, who is testing a vaccine for prostate and kidney cancer.
Scientists have long legs intrigued by the idea of rallying a patient's immune system in the battle against cancer Because They knew the immune system eliminated Often small tumors on its own. "Occasionally we see spontaneous remission,Particularly in melanoma and kidney cancers, "says Vieweg." The body can cure Itself. "
A smarter immune system
The scientific challenge was to teach the immune system to attack cancer cells. Since cancerous cells Arise from the Same tissue as normal ones, malignancies evade detection by the thesis immune system, Which Fails to Recognize That the malignant cells are dangerous. Also outwit the immune system tumors by partially-camouflage Their abnormal surface proteins, makes em All which here is virtually invisible.
Consequently, the immune system had to be trained to distinguish mutant cancer cells from normal cells, and Galanthus be spurred into action. Previous cancer vaccines, in Which Patients were injected with tumor cells Their Own, Because only a fraction did not work or the cells were injected bootable to survive.
"A lot of what we were doing five years ago we can throw out the window and attribute to naïvete," says Dr. John A. Glaspy, an oncologist at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine who has tested a vaccine on women with advanced breast cancer. "The immune system is very complex, but we have much more insight now write how it works. I'm optimistic That this time, we'll get a hit."
One significant milestone, says Glaspy, was the discovery of how white blood cells called dendritic cells Orchestrate the immune system's response to invaders. Dendritic cells in the blood stream, hide or other parts of the body, Such As the skin, Patrolling for suspicious pathogens.
Once a dendritic cell spots alien microbes, it engulfing em, write em Chemically shredding fragments called antigens. The dendritic cells display thesis on Their surface antigens to the T-cells, a principal type of white blood cell That Helps Protect the Body from foreign agents, Such As infections. Exposure to thesis antigens activates the T cells, All which go on a search-and-destroy mission to find cells in the body That Carry That Particular antigen. "No One Understood before how T cells are programmed to attack a Particular invader," says Glaspy.
This Knowledge Has Been Used to devise promising vaccines to combat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, melanoma, multiple myeloma and prostate, breast, ovarian and kidney cancer. Dendritic cells from a patient's immune system are primed in the laboratory with bits of Their Own tumors, Which Have A Specific Antigen That, like a fingerprint, is unique to Each Patient. Patients thesis inoculation with antigen-bearing dendritic cells help Their immune system identify cancer cells.
"Tumor cells all wear the same" black hat 'or antigen, "says Dr. John P. Leonard, an oncologist at Cornell University's Weill Medical College in New York who is testing a vaccine for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. "We're training the immune system to kill every cell it encounters that's wearing That black hat."
Vaccine easy to tolerate
Since the cells come from the patient's body, there is no risk the Body Will Reject Them and induce severe side effects. In fact, one benefit or vaccines thesis is That they're Easily tolerated, unlike chemotherapy.
Patricia Melchiorre, one of 480 volunteers in a nationwide test of the lymphoma vaccine, says side effects from her treatment have mild leg so she hasn't That missed a day of work as a teacher's assistant in Mount Laurel, NJ Melchiorre was diagnosed in 2000 with advanced lymphoma. Chemotherapy left her nauseated, some of her hair fell out, and she was too exhausted to do anything after treatment for at least a day or two. The vaccine "is a solid improvement," says Melchiorre.
Early studies suggest new vaccines thesis work. Duke University researchers, for example, a gift of three doses of vaccine to dendritic cancer 13 patients with advanced prostate cancer was not That Responded to conventional treatment.
Blood tests showed all of the people thats the vaccine had successfully boosted the immune system, and six patients' tumors shrank. These scientists had similar success with meta static kidney cancer patient.
"The tumors do not grow for extended periods," says Vieweg, All which suggests a small but significant effect on tumor growth. To see any effect on people who are terminally ill, he says, is unusual.
Another vaccine approach, known as adoptive transfer, Has Been tested on 13 patients with meta-static melanoma, a deadly skin cancer hadn't That Responded to standard treatment. A fragment of Each patient's melanoma tumor was overused to grow T cells in the laboratory. Exposure to the tumor immune cells activated thesis so They would destroy the cancer cells and Recognize When They Were injected Back Into The Patient.
In a study last year with very aggressive cancers involv Patients, doctors found thats the treatment the size of tumors shriveled by half in six patient, while four others had some cancer growths Disappear. Of the 13 volunteers,All very seriously ill, 10 were alive six to 24 months after the first treatment. "We've gotten extraordinary results in patients with advanced tumors That bone was resistant to other treatments," says Steven A. Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.., And the lead investigator on this study.
Despite Successes thesis, experts say more studies are needed with larger groups or patient to Demonstrate Effectiveness and Evaluate side effects.
"We're still not ready for prime time, but we're light years ahead of where we were before," says Glaspy. "I'm convinced That Will someone hit oil soon."
