Personalized vaccine may increase long-term survival in people with deadliest form of brain cancer

An international study led by UCLA researchers has found that a personalized vaccine may help people with glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, live longer. The vaccine, known as DCVax-L, uses a person ’s own white blood cells to help activate the immune system to fight cancer.Nearly 30 percent of people in the ongoing trial have survived for at least three years after they enrolled in the study. Currently, the average life expectancy for people diagnosed with glioblastoma is 15 to 17 months, and less than 5 percent of people who receive standard treatment survive more than five years after they are diagnosed.“The survival rate is quite remarkable compared to what would be expected for glioblastoma,” said lead author Dr. Linda Liau, professor of neurosurgery at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of theUCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “The 20 to 30 percent of long-term survivors in immunotherapy clinical trials are the people in whom we think there may be a particularly strong immune response against their cancer that is protecting them from getting tumor reoccurrence.”UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer CenterDendritic cell with tumor cell materialsInterim findings from the phase three study, which is still in progress, were published in the Journal of Translational Medicine.It is the largest trial to date testing a customized vaccine in people diagnosed with brain cancer.People who had recently been diagnosed with glioblastom...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news