Experimental Vaccine Shows Promise Against Lymphoma

An experimental vaccine tested on four lymphoma patients has shown promise in treating the lymph cancer, scientists said Friday.

The vaccine is for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of lymph cancer that occurs when disease-fighting antibodies known as B cells grow out of control.

“The finding shows that we can induce lymphoma patients to have an immune response,” said Dr. Ronald Levy, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a co-author of the study, which appears in the January edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The research is still in early stages, and the vaccine at this point cannot be mass-produced but must be tailored for each individual patient.

“We’re working on different methods, to make it a little more simple,” said Dr. Frank Hsu of Stanford, co-author of the study.

The vaccine was made by taking powerful immune agents known as dendritic cells from the patient’s blood, bathing them in a solution containing protein from the cells of the patient’s tumor, and then returning the treated dendritic cells to the body where they would then target and attack the tumor.

After nine months of treatment, two of the patients’ tumors had regressed and a third patient’s tumor had shrunk considerably. The fourth patient’s tumor did not change, which meant the disease was being held at bay.

The team believes that the technique could potentially be applied to other cancers, including the sometimes-fatal form of skin cancer known as melanoma.