Vaccine for brain cancer shows promise
pharmafile | June 3, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | Cancer, GBM, ImmunoCellular
Early stage trials of a new treatment for the brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme have shown promise.
ICT-107 is being developed by US biotech company ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, and works by stimulating the body’s own immune system to identify and attack the cancer cells.
New treatments for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) are particularly needed, as it remains one of the hardest to treat cancers and patients have a poor prognosis.
The phase I clinical trial of ICT-107 in glioblastoma multiforme involved newly diagnosed patients receiving the vaccine in addition to the standard of care of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
The results show a one year overall survival of 100% and a two year survival of 80 percent. This compares favourably with historical 61.1% one-year and 26.5% two-year survival based on the standard of care alone.
The median overall survival has not yet been reached at the 26.4 months analysis point, with 12 out of 16 patients alive (75% percent).
“These new data further establish ICT-107 as a promising potential treatment for glioblastoma, a disease for which there are currently few and limited treatment options,” said Surasak Phuphanich, M.D., Director of the Neuro-Oncology Programme at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“We are excited for what these data mean for patients, the medical community, and the field of immunotherapy as a whole. We look forward to further investigating ICT-107 in additional clinical studies.”
Dendritic cells
ICT-107 exploits the body’s own dendritic cells. These cells play a key role in triggering an immune response, but are often not present in sufficient numbers and are often not aggressive enough against malignant tumours to produce a strong enough immune response to fight cancer.
Dendritic cell therapy usually involves harvesting dendritic cells from a patient, then culturing and processing them in a laboratory to produce more numerous and effective dendritic cells.
The cells are cultured with specific tumour antigens to enable them to recognise cancer cells as targets for attack. When the newly cultured dendritic cells are injected back into the patient, they seek out remaining tumour cells and signal the T cells to destroy them.
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