I met with Dr Muzaffar Qazilbash at MDAnderson this morning to join his ongoing trial of Leukemia Vaccine. It sounded very promising to me. Is anyone else on this board in this trial?
Here is A write up that I found about it. Meeting Dates: Dec 4th through Dec 7th, 2004 Last Updated: Wednesday Dec 8th, 2004 Cancer Vaccine Produces Immune Response and Improves Survival in Patients With Leukemia Researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have developed a vaccine that stimulates the immune system to seek out and destroy leukemia cells. Their study, the first to show complete molecular remission induced by peptide vaccination, was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, held in San Diego. In research, the PR1 peptide (VLQELNVTV), a human leukemia- associated antigen, was shown to produce an immune response in 20 of 33 patients tested. Further, overall survival and cancer-free survival of responders were improved compared with nonresponders. Several studies have established the PR1 peptide to be a human leukemia-associated antigen. PR1 is derived from proteinase 3, an aberrantly expressed protein in myeloid leukemia cells, and can be presented on HLA-A2 to cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) that preferentially kill leukemia over normal hematopoietic progenitors. In the research, 35 HLA-A2+ patients (median age = 50 [26-82]) with AML, MDS, and CML were vaccinated with the PR1 peptide in an incomplete Freund's adjuvant (Montanide ISA-51) and 75 mg of GM-CSF. Eligibility included AML with smoldering disease or >/= 2nd CR, CML not responding to upfront treatment or relapsed disease, and MDS with >/= 5% blasts. Patients were assigned at random to receive 0.25 mg, 0.50 mg, or 1.0 mg PR1 SQ every three weeks for a total of three injections. Immune responses (IR) were assessed by PR1/HLA-A2 tetramer staining and intracellular IFN-gamma production by CTL, and clinical responses were assessed by bone marrow biopsy before study entry and three weeks after the third vaccination. The patients were treated at a median of 26 months from time of diagnosis, and follow up was one to four years. Toxicity was limited to grade 1 and 2 injection site reactions. Overall survival was 33% at four years. Immune responses (IR) were elicited in 20 of 33 evaluable patients (60%). Of 16 patients with relapsed or refractory AML, there were four (25%) clinical responses (three CR, one PR). All four AML patients treated during CR remain in CR. Of 10 CML patients, there was one cytogentic CR. Three CML patients refractory to allogeneic transplant, interferon, and imatinib had stable disease with some hematological improvement since these patients were able to discontinue hydroxyurea and anagrelide. Of 5 MDS patients, there was one PR (17% blasts reduced to 4%). Overall survival at four years was 14 of 20 patients with IR vs. 0 of 13 without IR (P<0.0001). Progression-free survival for patients with or without IR was 6.4 months vs. 2.4 months, respectively (P=0.003). The authors concluded that PR1 peptide vaccination is safe and can elicit both immunological and clinical responses in patients with refractory and relapsed myeloid leukemia, which improves progression- free survival of patients who have an immune response to PR1. Location: San Diego, CA ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12k5la5e4/M=327951.6903888.7846657.1589681/D=grphealth/S=1705061628:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122926897/A=2896151/R=0/SIG=118rbhnld/*http://www.facetheissue.com/abuse.html";>Does he tell you he loves you when he's hitting you? Abuse. Narrated by Halle Berry</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> New! Sign up for local CML support group meetings in your local community at http://cml.meetup.com Apply for Commercial Real Estate loans online and submit your deal to dozens of hungry lenders in just minutes. Loan programs for all types of business and commercial real estate. Apply anytime at http://realestatezoo.com CML (Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Support List) --------------------------------- Part Of CMLHope.Com An International Community Of CML Patients For more information: http://cmlhope.com Post Message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Change To No Mail/Web: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Change To Digest: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Change To Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CML Group Web Site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CML Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CML/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
