The first phase of clinical human trials was conducted to establish the effectiveness of colorectal cancer vaccine. In a newly published study outlining the Phase1 trial, it is suggesting that the vaccine is safe on people and actually stimulates immune activation. This latest positive finding has now paved the way for even bigger human trials. The results were published in the Journal for Immuno Therapy of Cancer.
Colorectal cancer is rapidly increasing in young people and remains the second largest cancer killer in the world. Colorectal cancer can be treated by surgery in most patients but the prognosis of the disease remains poor for patients with a recurrence. The research was carried out by researchers at Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University). If the vaccine can be effective in larger-scale trials then it could be very helpful at training patient's immune system to attack Colorectal cancer that had spread even before surgery.
The new vaccine is designed in a way that it stimulates a patient's immune system to track and destroy cancer. Immunotherapy treatments usually work by training the immune system to identify foreign agents and then kill them when they show up naturally in the body. Unfortunately, tumor cells are difficult to target by this method because they often closely resemble normal healthy cells.
"There is an urgent need to understand what fuels colorectal cancer growth, and to harness that knowledge for developing novel therapies. This pivotal study proves some of the first evidence that it may possible to safely to direct a patient's own immune system to seek and destroy this cancer type. This is a true milestone - made possible through the scientists and clinicians in our colorectal cancer team working in synchrony", said Karen E. Knudsen, Ph.D., EVP of Oncology Services and Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center - Jefferson Health.
There were some earlier preclinical works in mice that the Jefferson researchers revealed how the process of their vaccine worked. This latest clinical trial had ten patients with stage I or II colorectal cancer enrolled. The patients were given a single dose and then were asked to return for blood sample draws after periods of 30, 90, and 180 days after immunization. Although some patients experienced some sort of pain during injection, there were no cases of adverse side effects from the vaccine being reported.
