Vaccines against cancer: success of vaccine against lung cancer (also in Leuven/Brussels) will only be achieved with the help of Mage = A3 protein against return of surgically removed non-small-cellige lung cancer.
14 June: thanks to Sjoukje that our this article from the University of Leuven he had noticed.
Study with MAGE-A3successful in Leuven Belgium. At the bottom of post you will find address of professor who ran study and new study in Leuven/Brussels.
Lung cancer the most common form of (approximately 80% of cases) is non-small cell lung carcinoma. It is an aggressive cancer with a high mortality rate. An operation makes sense only if the tumor is discovered at an early stage. Patients whose tumor is removed, then in principle to reduce the chances of relapses chemotherapy. But there remains a reasonable chance of relapsing and moreover endures not everyone the side effects of chemotherapy after a heavy long operation. Vaccination with a antigen now seems a promising alternative for or a promising addition to chemotherapy. The patients get injections that stimulate their immune system to attack specific lung cells. It is if it were a very focused bullet shot, while chemotherapy rather to compare with a hail shot which hit more than just the cancer cells. Professor Vansteenkiste coordinated a study with 182 patients who after their operation the MAGE-A3-vaccine (a treatment developed by GSK Biologicals in Rixensart) or a placebo. After a follow-up study of nearly four years that they prove the vaccination therapy were less likely to have relapses. If they still relapse cases, it took usually longer for that happened. The vaccination therapy still showed an advantage compared with chemotherapy. The side effects were minimal and usually limited to what slight fever in the first 24 hours after the injection, so patients are felt more comfortable during the treatment.Vaccination with MAGE-A3 antigen seems promising therapy in lung cancer
Vaccination with the MAGE-A3 antigen seems to be a promising treatment for the most common form of lung cancer. Like chemotherapy limits the vaccination the chance of relapse after surgery but the side effects for the patient are much milder. That is apparent from a study led by professor Johan Vansteenkiste of Pneumology of K.U.Leuven/UZ Leuven.
' Vaccination therapy therefore seems especially promising for long-term treatments, especially in older patients or people who are weakened by the heavy operation that we remove the tumor. The MAGE-A3-vaccination therapy is now in a global study tested for confirmation of our results, ' says professor Vansteenkiste.
For more information, please Johan Vansteenkiste you contact professor of the Department of Pneumology of K.U.Leuven/UZ Leuven.
Resisting Lung Cancer Recurrence
Vaccine booster gives persistent immune response
(New York, February 5th) — What if we could prevent cancer recurrence for years after surgery by giving simple recall infections every two or three years? This concept may no longer be a fantasy. In a clinical study published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, a team headed by the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) has shown that a vaccine against a protein found in cancer cells produces an immune response that can be boosted and strengthened with additional vaccine shots. Patients with resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were treated with this investigational agent, also known as an Antigen-Specific Cancer Immunotherapeutic (ASCI), in another clinical study conducted by GlaxoSmithKline. The results showed a reduction in risk of cancer recurrence in these patients, a finding that prompted GlaxoSmithKline to initiate the largest ever clinical trial in lung cancer (by MAGRIT study).
According to Dr. LICR's, the senior author of this Gnjatic Sacha LICR-sponsored study, the long ' immunological memory "is exactly what cancer immunologists are hoping to see. "Vaccines against infectious diseases induce immunological responses that typically last for years, and ideally we want a cancer vaccine that does the same thing. We previously learned that our vaccine could stimulate an immune response recognizing a protein found in lung cancer cells but we did not know how long the response lasted. We now know that this vaccine schizophrenia and strong and persistent immunity over several years, which can be further ' boosted ' with additional vaccination. " Dr. Gnjatic said that the booster shots, given two years after the first cycle or vaccinations, not only reactivated the initial immune response in patients who received the priming vaccination, it also diversified the types or immune cells specific for the cancer protein. "We've not only kept the immune system interested, we've also got it to more broadly recognize the protein that marks the cell as being a cancer cell."
LICR and the Cancer Research Institute, both head-quartered in New York, supported the study under the auspices of the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative, with the clinical component conducted by Dr. Nasser Altorki at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Cancer vaccines have two principal components. One component, the ' adjuvant ', stimulates the immune system in a general way, and the other component, the ' tumor antigen ' — in this case, the MAGE-A3 antigen — directs the immune response specifically against the cancer cell. Last month, another LICR-sponsored clinical trial within the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative showed that a cancer vaccine based on the tumor antigen NY-ESO-1 stimulated an immune response in women with ovarian cancer. The results from that trial were suggestive that a similar boost strategy could be beneficial for long-term immunological memory in that disease also.
A completely unexpected finding from the present study was that the inital formulation and delivery of the tumour antigen to the immune system is critical and suggests that the combination of the antigen with an immunological adjuvant is key. The original, small clinical study, conducted three years ago by the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative, showed that the adjuvant was necessary for activation of the immune system; patients who received antigen alone failed to mount specific immune responses. Surprisingly, these same patients also failed to mount immune responses even when they received the full vaccine antigen plus adjuvant — — as a booster shot.
"This is such a surprising result," says LICR's Dr. Lloyd Old, another author on the study and Director of the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative. "In the vaccine field, boosters are given to convert negative or weak reactions to positive ones, and we really thought we would see the same thing. One intriguing possibility is that regulatory mechanisms were activated following the original weak response induced by the vaccine without adjuvant. These findings will certainly have ramifications for the whole field to determine the formulation and delivery of future cancer vaccines. "
Booster vaccination or cancer patients with MAGE-A3 protein reveals long-term immunological memory or tolerance depending on priming.
Department of Hematology/Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany.
We previously reported results of a phase II trial in which recombinant MAGE-A3 protein was administered with or without adjuvant AS02B to 18 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients after tumor resection. We found that the presence of adjuvant was essential for the development of humoral and cellular responses against selected MAGE-A3 epitopes. In our current study, 14 patients that still had no evidence of disease up to 3 years after vaccination with MAGE-A3 protein with or without adjuvant received an additional four doses or MAGE-A3 protein with AS02B adjuvant. After just one boost injection, six or seven patients originally vaccinated with MAGE-A3 protein plus adjuvant reached again their peak antibody titers against MAGE-A3 attained during the first vaccination. All seven patients subsequently developed even stronger antibody responses. Furthermore, booster vaccination widened the spectrum or CD4 (+) and CD8 (+) T cells against various new and known MAGE-A3 epitopes. In contrast, only two of seven patients originally vaccinated with MAGE-A3 protein alone developed high titre antibodies to MAGE-A3, and all these patients showed very limited CD4 (+) and no CD8 (+) T cell reactivity, despite now receiving antigen in the presence of adjuvant. Our results underscore the importance of appropriate antigen priming using an adjuvant for generating persistent B and T cell memory and allowing typical booster reimmunization with responses. In contrast, absence or adjuvant at priming compromises further immunization attempts. These data provide an immunological rational for vaccine design in light of recently reported favorable clinical responses in NSCLC patients after vaccination with MAGE-A3 protein plus adjuvant AS02B.
PMID: 18216244 [PubMed-indexed for MEDLINE
The Ludwig Institutute for cancer research reports that they have found a vaccine against a return of non-small lung cancer cellige-operateive. after a surgery. The special feature of this study is that the vaccine was successful only if the protein MAGE-A3 antigen was added. Without this "tool" the vaccine was much less successful. Below the press release of the Ludwig Institute and including the abstract and deeplink to full article from pubmed.
