Brain tumor vaccines are now showing outstanding results as Brain Tumor Alliance announced. They also said that they are maintaining all clinical trials and are raising awareness and funding for further research.
According to Web MD, the Brain Tumor Alliance does not only seek treatment for brain cancer but an ultimate cure for it instead. The said clinical trial responsible for a bright future for brain tumor vaccines were mentioned to be the research team from Duke Cancer Institute.
As the process of research goes, the team was mentioned to integrate immunotherapy to target a protein on glioblastoma tumors. The researchers then conducted a chemotherapy/vaccine combination in 11 patients. The brain tumor vaccine participants were mentioned to be injected with the vaccine that specifically targets cytomegalovirus (CMV) antigen pp65 which were found to mostly occur in glioblastoma tumors.
The patients were mentioned to have a combined vaccine injections along with a high dose of the chemotherapy drug known as temozolomide. Yet patients experienced side effects in dealing with temozolomide. Side effects identified to be nausea, lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, and fatigue as stated in the brain cancer vaccine study published last April 14 in Clinical Cancer Research per Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.
Furthermore, it was noted that half of glioblastoma brain cancer patients die within 15 months of diagnosis. Yet, the study results reported having 4 of its 11 participants to have survived for more than five years following the treatment. In which was considered as a huge breakthrough in finding the treatment for brain cancer.
"While not a controlled efficacy study, the survival results were surprising, and they suggest the possibility that combining the vaccine with a more intense regimen of this chemotherapy promotes a strong cooperative benefit," brain tumor vaccine study lead author Dr. Kristen Batich said in a statement.
Senior study investigator John Sampson, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the department of neurosurgery at Duke University then concluded that amid the astonishing results, it must be noted that the brain tumor cancer vaccine study is just a small clinical trial that needs further large clinical support research.
