How does Immunotherapy fight brain cancer?

The following information was provided by:

The Brain Tumor Center at Duke University

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian Hospital's

Brain Tumor Center

"There has been no change in the management of primary malignant tumors of the brain (Glioblastoma Multiforme and anaplastic astrocytomas - astrocytomas Grades 3 and 4) for 20 years.

  Radiation therapy can double life expectancy, and chemotherapy may add a few more months to median survival. The modern use of Gamma Knife adjuvant radiosurgery has further pushed the survival curve with it's high response rate, but still there is no cure for this dreaded disease. Survival may be only 1 year from the time of diagnosis, with fewer than 5% living 5 years. Thus, a new approach had to be undertaken..."

~ Dr. Christopher M. Duma MD

Hoag Memorial Hospital

Presbyterian Hospital's Brain Tumor Center

  "Brain tumor cells, being foreign to the body, should be able to be managed by our normal immunologic defenses as they would if a bacterial or viral infection occurred. Furthermore, there should be a "memory" of the foreign pathogen such that if the immune system came in contact with a tumor cell again, it could recognize and destroy it much like a second exposure to chicken pox.

 

  "Why doesn't this occur with primary malignant tumors of the brain? We think that brain tumors have evolved a way to evade our own defenses and produce a "wall" of immunosuppression. The cure for this cancer may well lie in the breakdown of this wall, or indeed the overwhelming of this wall."

~ Dr. Christopher M. Duma MD

Hoag Memorial Hospital

Presbyterian Hospital's Brain Tumor Center

Pictured at left is a Glioblastoma Multiforme, (Grade 4 astrocytoma), before immunotherapy. After 3 1/2 years of immunotherapy, the biopsies of the residual mass on the right showed only dead, necrotic tissue! This is extraordianrily promising as brain cancer often recurs!

"In translational immunotherapy, dendritic cell vaccination strategies and adoptive T-cell strategies have been developed to target novel and well-characterized tumor specific antigens in patients with brain tumors."

~Dr. John Sampson MD

The Brain Tumor Center at Duke