Personalized Cancer Vaccine is Associated With Promising Outcomes for Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia December 15, 2016, 11:10

The product of a long-term collaboration among investigators at the Cancer Center at BIDMC and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the vaccine stimulated powerful immune responses against AML cells and resulted in protection from relapse in a majority of patients, the team of researchers reported today in Science Translational Medicine.

«Immunotherapy strategies leverage the body’s own defense systems to fight cancer cells," said senior author David Avigan, MD, Chief, Section of Hematological Malignancies and Director of the Cancer Vaccine Program at the BIDMC Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. «By creating a personalized vaccine, we use the power of the immune system to selectively target each patient’s cancer and avoid the side effects of chemotherapy.»

Patients with AML may achieve remission following standard chemotherapy, yet relapse is common, and most patients ultimately succumb to the disease. In this study, the team of collaborators from BIDMC and Dana-Farber generated personalized vaccines for 17 patients with AML who were in remission after undergoing standard chemotherapy.

Despite an average age of 63, more than 70 percent of trial participants remained in remission at an average follow-up period of more than four years. After receiving a series of injections of the vaccine, patients demonstrated an increase in the number of leukemia-specific T cells in the blood and bone marrow. T cells are immune cells critical to the body’s ability to recognize and remember pathogens like viruses, or in this case, cancer cells. Present only in low numbers prior to vaccination, T cells recognizing AML cells were expanded after vaccination, potentially providing long-term protection against the leukemia.

«Immunotherapy strategies leverage the body’s own defense systems to fight cancer cells," said senior author David Avigan, MD, Chief, Section of Hematological Malignancies and Director of the Cancer Vaccine Program at the BIDMC Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. «By creating a personalized vaccine, we use the power of the immune system to selectively target each patient’s cancer and avoid the side effects of chemotherapy.»

Patients with AML may achieve remission following standard chemotherapy, yet relapse is common, and most patients ultimately succumb to the disease. In this study, the team of collaborators from BIDMC and Dana-Farber generated personalized vaccines for 17 patients with AML who were in remission after undergoing standard chemotherapy.

Despite an average age of 63, more than 70 percent of trial participants remained in remission at an average follow-up period of more than four years. After receiving a series of injections of the vaccine, patients demonstrated an increase in the number of leukemia-specific T cells in the blood and bone marrow. T cells are immune cells critical to the body’s ability to recognize and remember pathogens like viruses, or in this case, cancer cells. Present only in low numbers prior to vaccination, T cells recognizing AML cells were expanded after vaccination, potentially providing long-term protection against the leukemia.

Study coauthors also include Lynne Uhl, MD; Robin Joyce, MD; James D. Levine, MD; Jon Arnason, MD; Malgorzata McMasters, MD; Katarina Luptakova, MD; Salvia Jain, MD; Jeffrey I Zwicker, MD; Ayad Hamdan, MD; Vassiliki Boussiotis, MD, PhD; Poorvi Somaiya Dutt, MS; Emma Logan, BSN; Mary Paty Bryant; Dina Stroopinsky, PhD; Kristen Palmer, MA; Max Coll; Abigail Washington; and Leandra Cole, all of BIDMC. Co-authors also include Richard M. Stone, MD; David P. Steensma, MD; Daniel J. deAngelo, MD, PhD; and Ilene Galinsky, MSN, all of Dana-Farber.

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI R21CA149987-02) and from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Translational Research Program. Additional support for early vaccine work was provided by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation, and the Barbara and James Sadowsky Fund.

Source: http://www.bidmc.org/News/PRLandingPage/2016/December/Avigan-Cancer-Vaccine.aspx