[kevinc]

DCVax

by kevinc on Thu Nov 07, 2013 12:41 pm

Has anyone heard anything about the new cancer vaccine called DCVax. It is just finishing clinical trials for brain and prostate cancer, curious as to whether or not this could also be used for Multiple Myeloma at some point?

Kevin

[Multibilly]

Re: DCVax

by Multibilly on Thu Nov 07, 2013 7:24 pm

Not aware that this particular vaccine would work for myeloma or is being targeted as such. I believe the current generation of vaccines are very specific to a given disease based on how they work (as an example, targeting a specific protein present on the surface of a myeloma cell as the foundation for how it would operate). But, there are several vaccines in development/trial stages for multiple myeloma including ImMucin and one I'm keenly interested in, PVX-410 for smoldering myeloma patients (and ultimately symptomatic multiple myeloma). Can't wait to hear the first, early results on that one. They are currently recruiting smoldering patients for the PVX-410 trial.

The beacon ran a pretty good series of primers on vaccines sometime back. Here's the first in the series.

https://myelomabeacon.org/news/2011/02/18/new-advances-in-multiple-myeloma-vaccines-part-1-introduction/

[Dr. Adam Cohen]

Re: DCVax

by Dr. Adam Cohen on Thu Nov 07, 2013 10:19 pm

DCvax is currently only in development for solid tumors, though the concept behind it--namely, taking a patient's own dendritic cells, stimulating them with part of a tumor, and then injecting them back into the patient to stimulate an anti-tumor immune response--is potentially applicable in any type of cancer. There are a number of other vaccines currently being tested in myeloma, including PVX-410, MAGE-A3, idiotype vaccines, and myeloma-dendritic cell fusion vaccines, as well as a number of antibodies designed to augment a patient's natural immune response against myeloma (e.g. nivolumab (anti-PD1) and lirilumab (anti-KIR)). These are all in early phase testing, so we don't know yet if they will be beneficial, but they represent a completely new approach to treating myeloma, with the potential for less toxicity than standard agents. So stay tuned!