Personalised vaccine helps women to fight cancer

A PERSONALISED vaccine which boosts a patient’s immune system has nearly doubled the number of women surviving ovarian cancer for two years in a promising new breakthrough.

A pilot study involving 25 women showed that reprogramming their own immune cells so that they recognise their own tumour radically improved survival.

Nearly eight out of 10 (78 per cent) of women given the vaccine alongside immunotherapy drugs have now survived for two years, compared with 44 per cent who received the drugs alone.

Dr Lana Kandalaft, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, said: “Ovarian cancer is a silent killer which when diagnosed is usually in its advanced stage.

“A combination of chemotherapy and surgery is usually the standard of care in the primary setting, but 85 per cent of patients recur and are left with few other curative options.

“It was demonstrated that about 55 per cent of ovarian cancer patients have a spontaneous immune response, and this response actually correlates with better overall survival in these patients.”

The vaccine is made by taking immune cells from the patient’s own blood which are then exposed to material from the tumour to train them to identify and infiltrate cancerous cells.

At one year, 100 per cent of the vaccinated patients – all of who had late stage cancer – were still alive compared with 60 per cent of those who had received just the two drugs.

Dr Kandalaft added: “The patients who received the vaccine mounted an immune response against their own tumours.”

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer among British women, with more than 7,400 new cases each year. It mainly affects those who have been through the menopause, with 82 per cent of cases among women over 50.

Survival rates are poor because only 15 per cent of tumours are picked up at an early stage. Although the study met all of its goals, it was not a random, placebo-controlled trial, and researchers are now keen to begin larger trials. But they are confident the treatment could move quickly to the clinic if it is shown to be as effective.

“We aren’t giving patients any completely new drugs in combination with this personalised vaccine,” she points out.

“Bevacizumab and cyclophosphamide are routinely used to treat recurrent ovarian cancer. All we did was add the vaccine. This means that we should be able to easily integrate this personalised immunotherapy into the current standard of care for recurrent ovarian cancer.”

The pilot results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.