Clinical Trials, Recent Discoveries in Brain Tumor Vaccines

This week has been a busy week for researchers at Duke University and NYU Medical Center. Both schools are testing different types of brain tumor vaccines that hopes to cure patients suffering from the disease. While researchers at the Duke University will just begin testing a vaccine that contains a common human virus to cure brain tumors, researchers at the NYU Medical Center already begun the 2nd phase of their clinical trials for the vaccine called DCVax-Brain.

A study conducted by researchers at Duke's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center revealed that a common human virus may be the key in destroying glioblastoma multiforme, the most deadly type of brain tumor.

The virus found to be useful to brain tumor patients is called Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). According to Duane Mitchell, researcher at Duke's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, the Human cytomegalovirus infects 50 to 90 percent of people at one point of their livves and is present in 90 percent of patients diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme. HCMV could help to develop a vaccine that can activate our body's immune system to attack the deadly brain tumors.

According to the researchers, HCMV manifests itself through flulike symptoms but in some people with healthy immune systems, HCMV infection can be symptom free. The virus becomes dormant after infection but when a person's immune system becomes weakened due to disease such as AIDS or those persons undergoing bone marrow transplant, the HCMV reactivates and can cause severe illness such as pneumonia. Mitchell says that they don't know whether HCMV causes the growth of the brain tumor or whether the brain tumor causes the awakening of the virus, however, the researchers do know that HCMV may affect the growth and persistence of the cancer cells and if they are able to target it, they can empower the body's immune system to fight the tumors and potentially destroy the cancer.

The cure includes a vaccine that targets the HCMV and will be administered after the standard chemotherapy. The researchers developed this vaccine based on the results of their study. According to the Duke Medical Center press release, the immune system when it recovers from chemotherapy, there's a regenerative burst of immune cells which the vaccine can take advantage of in order to effect a stronger immune response to the virus. The Duke researchers will conduct a clinical trial to assess the vaccine's safety and effectiveness. During the clinical trial, researchers will give the vaccine monthly to patients suffering from brain tumors simultaneously with chemotherapy as long as their tumors are stable. The enrollment for the clinical trial will be completed this year.

Mitchell says that they are encouraged by the results of the clinical trial and that they initial study will enable them to proceed with testing the vaccine in patients. Mitchell says, "Because HCMV is present in such a large number of glioblastoma multiforme patients, the development of an effective treatment that targets the virus could have significant implications for this deadly disease."

NYU's DCVax-Brain also hopes to fight glioblastoma multiforme but instead of using HCMV, DCVax-Brain will use proteins that can be found in a patient's tumor to specifically target the cancer cells. Both vaccines uses different method but in the end, both research hopes to give patient's suffering from glioblastoma multiforme a better chance of survival.

SOURCE:

Duke University Medical Center, "Common Virus May Help Doctors Treat Deadly Brain Tumors." Dukemednews.org

Philip Silva, "NYU to Continue Clinical Testing of Brain Cancer Vaccine". Associatedcontent.com