Can cancer vaccines prolong survival?

IMAGE:Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, published 10 times per online with open access options and in print, is under the editorial leadership of Co-Editors-in-Chief Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD, Department of Radiation... view more

Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

ew Rochelle, NY, April 6, 2015--Therapeutic anti-cancer vaccines developed to treat metastatic disease such as advanced prostate cancer or melanoma rarely have a noticeable effect on the tumor but have been associated with a statistically significant increase in patient survival. Robert O. Dillman, MD, NeoStem, Inc., asserts that "overall survival" rather than "progression-free survival" should be the gold standard for evaluating the efficacy of cancer vaccines in clinical trials, in a provocative new article published in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website until May 6, 2015.

In the article "Cancer Vaccines: Can They Improve Survival?" Dr. Dillman differentiates between the two key endpoints typically used to assess therapeutic cancer vaccines in clinical studies. As cancer vaccines are designed to stimulate an immune response to cancer cells and induce long-term memory recognition of a tumor, they may improve overall survival even if they do not appear to slow the progression of disease. Although measuring overall survival compared to progression-free survival would usually require longer clinical trials, overall survival may be the only relevant efficacy endpoint, the author concludes.

"This is a timely article considering the number of vaccine and antibody immunotherapy trials ongoing or planned," says Co-Editor-in-Chief Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD, Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Radiation Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham. "The conclusion that overall survival is the best clinical endpoint for efficacy in therapeutic vaccine and antibody immunotherapy trials in patients with metastatic cancer is based on an analysis of four completed trials."

About the Journal

Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals , published 10 times per online with open access options and in print, is under the editorial leadership of Co-Editors-in-Chief Donald J. Buchsbaum, PhD, Department of Radiation Oncology, Division of Radiation Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Robert K. Oldham, MD, CAMC-Teay's Valley Cancer Center. Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals, celebrating 30 years in 2015, is the only journal with a specific focus on cancer biotherapy, including monoclonal antibodies, cytokine therapy, cancer gene therapy, cell-based therapies, and other forms of immunotherapy. The Journal includes extensive reporting on advancements in radioimmunotherapy and the use of radiopharmaceuticals and radiolabeled peptides for the development of new cancer treatments. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research, Human Gene Therapy, and Stem Cells and Development. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN) (http://www.genengnews.com), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

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Can cancer vaccines prolong survival?