A senior NHS doctor who was one of the trial’s lead investigators said the evidence showed DCVax had led to “amazing” improved survival for patients. The discovery could benefit the 2,500 people a year in the UK who are diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer and also one of the most aggressive. People with the disease live an average of just 12-18 months after diagnosis, some even less. One patient in the 331-person multicenter global study lived for more than eight years after receiving DCVax. In Britain, 53-year-old Nigel French is still alive seven years after acquiring it. “The overall results are surprising,” said Professor Keyoumars Ashkan, a neurosurgeon at King’s College Hospital, London, who led the research in Europe. “The final results of this phase three trial … offer new hope to patients battling glioblastoma. The vaccine “has been shown to extend life and is of interest in patients who were traditionally thought to have a worse prognosis,” such as the elderly and people for whom surgery was not an option, he added. If approved by medical regulators, DCVax would be the first new treatment in 17 years for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients and the first in 27 years for people in whom it had returned. Trial researchers found that newly diagnosed patients who had the vaccine survived for an average of 19.3 months, compared with 16.5 months for those who received a placebo. Participants with recurrent glioblastoma who had DCVax lived an average of 13.2 months after receiving it, compared with just 7.8 months for those who did not. Overall, 13 percent of people who received it lived for at least five years after diagnosis, compared to just 5.7 percent of those in the control group, according to the trial results, published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Society of Oncology. A vaccine is a form of immunotherapy, in which the body’s immune system is programmed to find and attack the tumor. It is the first to be developed to treat brain tumors. “The vaccine works by stimulating the patient’s own immune system to fight the patient’s tumor. It provides a personalized solution by working with a patient’s immune system, which is the most intelligent system known to man,” said Ashkan. “The vaccine is produced by combining proteins from the patient’s own tumor with their white blood cells. This trains the white blood cells to recognize the tumor. “When the vaccine is given, these educated white blood cells help the rest of the patient’s immune system recognize the tumor as something to fight and destroy. Almost like training a sniffer dog.” The vaccine is not yet available on the NHS. But Northwest Biotherapeutics, the US company that makes it, plans to seek regulatory approval to make it available. The charity Brain Tumor Research said “patients who have been starved for new clinical options for too long” needed to access the treatment to extend their lives. “DCVax represents the first emerging therapy to be shown to be effective in the treatment of glioblastoma since temozolomide chemotherapy in 2005 and what the brain tumor community hopes is to make it affordable, possibly standard of care – so available on the NHS.” said Dr Karen Noble, the charity’s director of research, policy and innovation. “The average survival time for glioblastoma is devastatingly short – just 12 to 18 months. Stories like Mr. French’s are rare but incredibly welcome. We are very encouraged by the final results of this trial,” he added. Twenty of the 331 patients in the eight-year trial were in the UK, either at King’s Hospital or University College London. A total of 232 participants had DCVax and 99 placebo. All 331 underwent surgery followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy to remove as much of their tumor as possible, which is the standard treatment for glioblastoma. Dr Henry Stennett, director of research information at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘What is particularly exciting is that [the vaccine] can improve outcomes for people who don’t usually respond well to treatment. Although it still needs strict regulatory approval, it could be a big step forward in fighting this type of brain tumor.” ends
