maven&meddler

This is the holy grail for millions of women - both who have not had breast cancer, and those like me who have and live in daily fear that it will return.

Maven in 2002, at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, receiving chemotherapy for Stage IIIa breast cancer.

The very idea that I could be vaccinated against a recurrence would change my life as profoundly as the initial diagnosis of Stage IIIa breast cancer did. I could get back to living my life completely - without that sneaky part of my brain that worries every little pain (metastasis to the bones?), rumbling cough (metastasis to the lungs?), and every little tummy ache (metastasis to the liver?) into something sinister.

My only regret about this news? That it didn’t come first from M. D. Anderson. Oh, well.

Here is the information direct from the Cleveland Clinic:

Research Could Lead to First Vaccine to Prevent Breast Cancer Formation in Women over Age 40 and Women at High Risk

A first-of-its-kind vaccine to prevent breast cancer has shown overwhelmingly favorable results in animal models, according to a study by researchers at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute.

The researchers found that a single vaccination with the antigen α-lactalbumin prevents breast cancer tumors from forming in mice, while also inhibiting the growth of already existing tumors. Human trials could begin within the next year. If successful, it would be the first vaccine to prevent breast cancer.

The research will be published online May 30 at http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine/ and in the June 10 issue of Nature Medicine.

“We believe that this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines prevent polio and measles in children,” said Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator and an immunologist in Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute Department of Immunology. “If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental. We could eliminate breast cancer.”

In the study, genetically cancer-prone mice were vaccinated — half with a vaccine containing α-lactalbumin and half with a vaccine that did not contain the antigen.

None of the mice vaccinated with α-lactalbumin developed breast cancer, while all of the other mice did.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved two cancer-prevention vaccines, one against cervical cancer and one against liver cancer. However, these vaccines target viruses — the human papillomavirus (HPV) and the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) — not cancer formation.

In terms of developing a preventive vaccine, cancer presents a quandary not posed by viruses. While viruses are recognized as foreign invaders by the immune system, cancer is not. Rather, cancer is an over-development of the body’s own cells. Trying to vaccinate against this cell over-growth would effectively be vaccinating against the recipient’s own body, destroying healthy tissue.

The key, Dr. Tuohy said, is to find a target within the tumor that is not typically found in a healthy person. In the case of breast cancer, Dr. Tuohy and his research team targeted α-lactalbumin — a protein that is found in the majority of breast cancers, but is not found in healthy women, except during lactation. Therefore, the vaccine can rev up a woman’s immune system to target α-lactalbumin — thus stopping tumor formation — without damaging healthy breast tissue.

The strategy would be to vaccinate women over 40 — when breast cancer risk begins to increase and pregnancy becomes less likely. (If a woman would become pregnant after being vaccinated, she would experience breast soreness and would likely have to choose not to breast feed.) For younger women with a heightened risk of breast cancer, the vaccine may be an option to consider instead of prophylactic radical mastectomy.

“Most attempts at cancer vaccines have targeted viruses, or cancers that have already developed,” said Joseph Crowe, M.D., Director of the Breast Center at Cleveland Clinic. “Dr. Tuohy is not a breast cancer researcher, he’s an immunologist, so his approach is completely different — attacking the tumor before it can develop. It’s a simple concept, yet one that has not been explored until now.”

Dr. Tuohy believes that the findings of this study go beyond breast cancer, providing insight into the development of vaccines to prevent other types of cancer. The results show that the antigen used in a cancer vaccine must meet several criteria: it must be over-expressed in the majority of targeted tumors; and it must not be found in normal tissue, except under specific, avoidable conditions (such as lactation).

Update on Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 14:23 by mavenandmeddler

Here is a followup from the Cleveland Clinic regarding any clinical trials on the horizon - there are none, yet. They are in desparate need of donations, however, toward funding any clinical trials - so if you happen to have some spare dollars laying around ….

Their reply:

 

Thank you for contacting the Cleveland Clinic through our site on the Web.  

 

The vaccine is currently not in clinical use. Funding is needed to take this discovery to the next step and to be able to bring it to healthy women for prevention of breast cancer. 

 

It will take several years of clinical trials before the vaccine is readily available to breast-cancer-free women for prevention. The highest priority is the safety of the participants in the trials.  First we will evaluate safety, then we will evaluate dosage.

 

Initial trials will be done in patients with established disease. We are not soliciting names for inclusion in the clinical trials. We do not yet have the “go-ahead” from the FDA. Financial support is what is needed now so we can continue the processes involved in moving this from the lab to the research venue to the patient. We hope our findings will benefit women who are now ages 30 and up. Early trials will be in a limited population of well defined patients.

 

This vaccination is different from what has been done in other vaccines for cancer.  Other vaccines served as “treatment” vaccines, but this is for prevention. We are encouraged because this approach is novel, and offers true breakthroughs with respect to vaccine approach to cancer 

 

 Any contacts interested in donating towards Dr. Tuohy’s breast cancer vaccination project and clinical trials should contact Susan Sasvari, Director of Fund Development at LRI; Tel: 216-444-1821; E-mail: sasvars@ccf.org

 

Any contacts requesting general info about breast cancer, the Cleveland Clinic, or the vaccine research, call The Cancer Answer line 1-866-223-8100 or 216-444-7923.

 

For more information, you may read the paper, entitled “A prophylactic, autoimmune-mediated vaccination strategy for breast cancer” and is published in Nature Medicine June 2010.             http://www.nature.com/nm/index.html

 

 

To learn more about the services in the Breast Center, please visit our Website at:

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/breastcenter

 

 

 

I hope this information has been of help to you.  Please contact us again if you need additional information.  Best of luck to you!

 

Sincerely,

Charmaine Jones

The Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland, OH

www.clevelandclinic.org