Vaccines for Ovarian and Breast Cancer in Early Trials

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Friday, January 11, 2008; 8:00 PM

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FRIDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Therapeutic vaccines to fight ovarian and breast cancer are in the first stage of clinical trials to determine their safety and effectiveness, researchers report.

The vaccine for ovarian cancer, developed by Dr. George Coukos, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's division of gynecologic oncology, is designed to "re-educate" the patient's immune system cells to destroy cancer cells.

"This trial is a phase I/II trial that is just getting started," Coukos said during a presentation Thursday evening at a meeting of the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, in Greenwich, Conn. The trial will include some 30 women with ovarian cancer.

The vaccine makes use of the patients' own tumor cells, which are then put into the patients' own dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are responsible for initiating the body's immune response, Coukos said.

In this trial, two new drugs -- called DCVax-L and DCVax-L primed -- are being used to aid in growing new immune cells. The trial is also testing which of the drugs is most effective.

The "re-educated" dendritic cells are then injected back into the patient at intervals spanning as long as three years, according to Coukos. Once in the body, these cell are designed to attack the cancer cells.

Using this therapy in mice produced dramatic results, Coukos said. "Typically, the translation from mouse to human is always disappointing," he said. "We are hoping, based on other clinical data, there will be a good response."

By creating individualized ovarian cancer vaccines composed of a patient's own cells, Coukos believes that his tailored approach will be effective. "We actually use the patient's own tumor and the patient's own blood. So it's not one-type-of-therapy-fits-all. Everybody gets their own individualized treatment," he said.

As with all early trials, the outcome isn't assured. "We need to keep trying," Coukos said. "One trial will not provide all the answers we need."

There were some 22,430 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed in the United States in 2007, and approximately 15,280 deaths from the disease, according to American Cancer Society estimates. In most cases of ovarian cancer, the disease has already reached late stage and spread beyond the ovaries before it is detected and diagnosed. Because the cancer has spread to other parts of the body -- metastasized -- the prognosis is typically not good, Coukos said.