Good news for cancer fighters all around the world! Scientists at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hope to begin clinical trials this spring on a vaccine to prevent the recurrence of breast cancer. However, even if it's successful, the vaccine would not replace chemotherapy and radiation, but it could certainly help the patients in their treatment.
The vaccine was developed over a decade of study on the immune system. The key of the it was understanding how different molecules work together to combat disease. Breast cancer cells are covered with molecules, called antigens, that are capable of triggering the production of antibodies that fight breast cancer cells.
Anyway, the carbohydrate antigens on cancer cells do not stimulate a strong immune system response, but Dr. Kieber-Emmons' team came up with an alternative approach, by developing peptide antigens that mimic the carbohydrates. Therefore, the peptide-based vaccine tricks the body into producing antibodies that target both the peptides in the vaccine and the carbohydrates they ressemble on the breast cancer cells.
The trials for this medicine will be done in phases. The first phase will last four to six months, involving women with cancer that is actively spreading and women whose cancer has come back after going into remission. The women sill each receive five doses of the vaccine.
The second phase will last about a year or so and it will include women who have had breast cancer but are in remission and considered at high risk of getting the terrible disease again. The women will have to have been off chemotherapy for at least six months. The number of patients that will participate in the study has yet to be established.
These first two phases will involve Arkansas patients, but future clinical trials conducted to test the medicine may expand in order to include patients from other cancer centers around the country.
In order to develop the peptide antigens that mimic the carbohydrates, scientists used a computer generation. The six-year and $2.9 million program was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program.
Recent data shows that breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Hispanic women and the second most-common cause of cancer death in white, black, Asian and American Indian women, In 2004, 40,954 women died of breast cancer, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control. That same year, 362 men died of the disease. Furthermore, one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. It remains to be seen if this revolutionary medicine will have its desired effect against breast cancer.