A small study of patients with brain cancer showed that Antigenics Inc’s Oncophage vaccine helped them live about four months longer than their doctors estimated.

The vaccine works by reprogramming the body’s immune system to target only cancer cells bearing the fingerprint of the patient’s particular cancer, leaving healthy tissue intact.

The results were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology in Las Vegas.

The study looked at 12 patients who took Oncophage and found that patients with relapsed glioma lived a median time of 10.05 months, with four patients surviving beyond 12 months and one patient surviving almost 2.5 years. This is compared to a historical median survival of only 6.5 months post surgery.

“These are the most challenging patients to treat because their survival is typically three to six months. These preliminary results suggest a possible impact on survival as well as a very favorable safety profile,” said Andrew T. Parsa, MD, PhD, associate professor in the department of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.

Earlier this year, Oncophage was approved in Russia to treat a subset of kidney cancer patients whose cancer has been fully removed following surgery and has not spread to other parts of the body.

This trial’s results have been reviewed by the National Cancer Institute, which plans to sponsor two new trials of the vaccine in brain cancer: one in children, and the other in adults.

Gliomas (primary brain tumors) start in the brain or spinal cord tissue. They can spread within the nervous system but do not spread outside the nervous system. Gliomas can be either benign (slow growing) or malignant (fast growing).

Annually, about 17,000 Americans are diagnosed with a primary brain tumor. Treatment options and survival odds depend on the tumor type, size and location, as well as the patient's age and overall health.