Two patients with melanoma that had spread to the liver survived for at least 8.5 and 12 years after resection of the hepatic tumor and treatment with patient-specific immunotherapeutic vaccines. The vaccines, designed to activate the immune system against the tumor, were derived from the patients' own dendritic cells loaded with proteins isolated from their tumors, as described in an article published in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free for download on the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website until June 10, 2016.
Robert O. Dillman, MD, formerly Vice President Oncology, Caladrius Biosciences, Inc. and currently Chief Medical Officer, NeoStem Oncology (Irvine, CA) and Executive Medical and Scientific Director, Hoag Cancer Institute (Newport Beach, CA) discusses the typically poor prognosis for patients with melanoma of the eye or skin that spreads to the liver, and reports on the potential to achieve long-term survival without disease progression in a subset of patients using the eltrapuldencel-T vaccine. One patient had no disease progression for more than 4.5 years, while the other patient survived and remained disease-free for more than 12 years.
The article "Long-term Progression-free and Overall Survival in Two Melanoma Patients Treated with Patient-Specific Therapeutic Vaccine Eltrapuldencel-T After Resection of a Solitary Liver Metastasis" provides a detailed discussion of the composition and use of the vaccine and its effectiveness in these patients.
"These exciting results illustrate the potential for melanoma patient-specific therapeutic vaccines to enhance long-term survival and add to the progress being made on the immmunotherapy of melanom," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD, Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Radiation Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham.
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