The latest on vaccines to prevent, treat cancer

TAMPA - Could the cure for breast cancer come in a shot? What about a vaccine to treat prostate cancer? Here’s how doctors are now developing vaccines to treat and even prevent cancer.

Vaccine target number one: lung cancer.

Betty Jiminez is a lung cancer patient. "Why me? I'm sure everybody thinks the same way." She is part of a trial testing a treatment that targets a protein found in one-third of non-small cell lung cancer patients.

George F. Geils is an oncologist and hematologist at Roper St. Francis. "I think it's as promising as anything I've seen in my career."

Early studies announced at a national meeting show that after surgery, patients who get the vaccine have up to a 43 percent lower risk of their cancer coming back.

Vaccine target number two: advanced prostate cancer.

Philip Kantoff is the Chief Clinical Research Officer for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  "We are talking about therapeutic vaccines that treat cancer by revving up the immune system."

In a three-year study of an experimental vaccine called prostvac-vf, 30% of patients who got the vaccine were alive. Only 17 percent of those who got a placebo survived that long.

A second vaccine recently approved by the FDA, called Provenge, improved three-year survival by nearly 40 percent.

Bud Dougherty is a Prostate vaccine patient. “I want to be part of something that works, so people will not die at younger ages and can benefit from it."

Finally - a breast cancer vaccine is in the works at Cleveland Clinic.

The vaccine would tell the immune system to kill the cancer just when it's starting to form.

Vincent Tuohy, a researcher at the Clinic says, “I see the immune system as a weapon system, a very powerful biologic weapon that we can use to target in a very defined way like a smart bomb."

Three vaccines taking aim at three of the most common kinds of cancer.

The lung cancer vaccine trial is the largest-ever study designed to prevent the relapse of cancer. One of the prostate cancer vaccines was recently FDA approved, and the breast cancer vaccine is still in development.

Researchers say the breast cancer vaccine would work as a preventive treatment. Women would get the vaccine when they reach the age of susceptibility, usually in their 40s.

For more information:

Lung Cancer Vaccine

Roper St. Francis Healthcare
Physicians Referral Line
Charleston, SC
(843) 402- CARE

Breast Cancer Vaccine

Monina Wagner
Media Relations Manager
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, OH
Wagnerm5@ccf.org
(216) 444 - 2412