Ovarian Cancer Vaccine Might Extend Survival

In early trial, doses of the shot delayed recurrence.

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
Monday, July 23, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- A vaccine to ward off recurrences of ovarian cancer shows promise, both in terms of safety and effectiveness, U.S. researchers report.

The 18 women who received the vaccine went a median of 19 months before their tumor reappeared, the team noted.

"From a clinical standpoint, the assertion that the women had a 19-month progression-free survival is astounding, because these are all recurrent disease patients," said Dr. Robert Morgan Jr., section head of medical gynecologic oncology at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.

"In general, response rates and progression-free survival you see from someone is usually around six to eight months before the tumors relapse. This is really encouraging," added Morgan, who was not involved in the study.

He did sound one note of caution, however. "Eighteen patients is obviously not going to be enough to draw any firm conclusions," Morgan said. "But I think that this data is certainly data which should be encouraging to continue in larger trials."

Another expert echoed those sentiments.

"This is a very well-done study showing what we all know: that the immune system can play a very important role in our fight against cancers," said Dr. David A. Fishman, director of gynecologic oncology, cancer prevention and early detection at New York University Cancer Institute in New York City. "From a scientific standpoint, it's a very interesting study that shows a lot of promise, but it does not show that we're ready for prime-time yet."

The study, which was led by Dr. Kunle Odunsi of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, in Buffalo, N.Y., was published Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cancer killer of women. Some 20,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with the disease every year, and about 15,000 women will die from it during the same time frame.

As with most cancers, a woman's chances of survival are better if the disease is found early, but ovarian tumors are a "stealth killer," because they are notoriously difficult to detect in their early stages. Only about 20 percent of ovarian cancers are found before the malignancy has spread to other tissues, according to information from the Mayo Clinic.