Sarasota Memorial Hospital is the first site in the world to enroll participants in a study using newly diagnosed ovarian cancer patients’ immune systems to create a personalized drug designed to target and destroy their deadly disease.
Should the custom-blended medicine, called CVac, succeed in keeping the cancer from returning, it could extend the lives of more than 22,000 U.S. women whose cancer is diagnosed each year. There is even a chance that CVac — called a vaccine because of its potential to immunize the patient — could be made powerful enough to prevent ovarian cancer in the first place.
The experimental vaccine, developed by Primo BioMed in Australia, has passed safety studies and won approval for marketing in the Middle East. Other clinical trials have involved women with advanced ovarian cancer, but this is the first study of effectiveness in newly diagnosed patients.
The enthusiasm of one local women’s cancer specialist thrust Southwest Florida into the global picture in ovarian cancer research. This is the kind of advanced-stage study once confined to major academic centers. But new technologies are enabling people in places like Sarasota to participate in cutting-edge research without leaving home. Three local women have already been accepted in the study, said James Fiorica, the principal investigator in the research who pushed for trial here.
The Sarasota collaboration also involves other oncologists and radiologists, the hospital’s oncology research department and Suncoast Communities Blood Bank.
Ovarian cancer most often strikes women over 55, and has a high fatality rate because its symptoms are usually so subtle — bloating and abdominal discomfort — that the cancer spreads to other parts of the body before detection. CVac is designed for the 80 percent of ovarian cancer patients whose tumors contain an antigen called mucin-1, which the vaccine was developed to seek out and kill.
There is no guarantee the vaccine will work, and 50 percent of patients in the study will be getting a placebo instead of the real thing. But vaccines will be created for all participants, Fiorica said. If during the trial it becomes clear that the vaccine is working, those who have been given placebos would receive it as well.
And those who are chosen for the CVac trial will have little to lose, since there are no other preventive treatments currently available.
A novel approach
Surgery is the current standard treatment for ovarian cancer, followed by chemotherapy, Fiorica said. After that, there is little a doctor can do but observe the patient, hoping tumors will not reappear. CVac has the potential to prevent a relapse.
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Source : http://health.heraldtribune.com/2012/02/08/promising-ovarian-cancer-drug-is-being-tested-in-sarasota
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