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Personalized Cancer Medicine: Advances in Cancer Vaccines and Targeted Therapies

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Orlando, Fla. — New research examining personalized approaches to cancer treatment were released today at the 45th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

"The field of personalized medicine is rapidly expanding. The more we learn about the genetic mechanics of cancer growth, the more we can harness that knowledge to personalize therapies to each patient's disease. This will improve outcomes, help patients avoid unnecessary side effects and reduce the cost of cancer care," said Sonali Smith, MD, associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, who moderated the briefing. "The studies discussed today give us some of the first positive data on the effectiveness of therapeutic cancer vaccines, demonstrate a new use for the targeted breast cancer drug trastuzumab, and offer new genetic clues about which patients with lung cancer will benefit most from chemotherapy."

Key study findings include:

Customized Therapeutic Vaccine Prolongs Disease-Free Survival for Delays Follicular Lymphoma: A study featured in ASCO’s plenary session finds that a patient-specific therapeutic vaccine called BiovaxID prolongs disease-free survival of follicular lymphoma, delaying relapse by 14 months. The vaccine is created using a patient’s own cancer cells.

Therapeutic Vaccine Extends Progression-Free Survival for Metastatic Melanoma: Adding a novel targeted cancer vaccine – gp100:209-217 (210M) peptide – to standard therapy doubles treatment response rates and increases progression-free survival in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Trastuzumab (Herceptin) Improves Gastric Cancer Survival for Patients with HER2-positive Disease: Among patients with gastric cancer tumors that express high levels of the HER2 protein, those who receive trastuzumab plus standard chemotherapy have a reduced risk of death compared with those who receive standard chemotherapy alone. This is the first time trastuzumab – which is widely used to treat HER2-positive breast cancer – has been proven effective in another cancer.

Lung Cancer Patients Lacking DNA Repair Protein Fare Better with Chemotherapy: Non-small cell lung cancer patients with no or low levels of the MSH2 DNA repair protein respond better to cisplatin-based chemotherapy after surgery, compared to patients with high MSH2 levels.

For consumer-oriented information on these studies and more than 120 cancer types, please refer your readers to ASCO's patient website, www.Cancer.Net.