Mesothelioma Treatment: Potential Vaccination to Combat Asbestos Cancer

Recent findings from a study that have been published in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine have indicated a potential vaccine that can be safely used to combat mesothelioma cancer.

The vaccine helps combine a patient’s own dentritic cells (DC) with an antigen from the patient’s mesothelioma tumor. As a result, a T-cell response against the mesothelioma tumor can be generated.

According to Joachim G Aerts, a researcher and pulmonary physician at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, “This is the first human study on DC-based immunotherapy in patients with mesothelioma.”

While previous research showed dentritic cell vaccinations could cause anti-tumor immunity and improved survival in mice, Dr. Aerts and colleagues sought to test their findings on human patients recently diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma.

The researchers recruited 10 patients diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma of the epithelial subtype and cultured immature dentritic cells from their blood while exposing the cells to the antigen produced by the patients’ tumors.

The dentritic cells were also exposed to keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH), which was utilized as a surrogate marker to evaluate the immune response. In three separate doses over a two-week interval, the cells were matured and injected back into the patients.

The serum samples from all patients receiving the vaccination demonstrated an increase in antibodies to KLH. Four patients experienced cytotoxicity against their own tumors. An additional three patients showed signs of tumor regression, but this could not be directly attributed to the vaccine. A total of eight patients felt flu-like symptoms after receiving the vaccine, but such symptoms were gone after one day in all but one of the patients.

Dr. Aerts concluded, “We hope that by further development of our method it will be possible to increase survival in patients with mesothelioma and eventually vaccinate persons who have been in contact with asbestos to prevent them from getting asbestos-related diseases.”

Additional information about mesothelioma may be found though the Mesothelioma Center.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Mesothelioma, Mesothelioma Research, Mesothelioma Treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.