A new cancer "vaccine" that's injected directly into a single tumor can trigger the immune system to attack cancer cells throughout the body, a small new study suggests. The researchers say that the experimental therapy essentially turns tumors into "cancer vaccine factories," where immune cells learn to recognize the cancer before seeking it out and destroying it in other parts of the body. "[We're] seeing tumors all throughout the body melting away" after injecting just one tumor, said lead study author Dr. Joshua Brody, director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Still, the research, published today (April 8) in the journal Nature Medicine, is very preliminary. The therapy has only been tested in 11 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (a cancer of immune system cells), and not all of these patients responded to the treatment. But some patients did have remission for relatively long periods, and the results were promising enough that the therapy is now also being tested in patients with breast and head and neck cancers, the authors said. [7 Odd Things That Raise Your Risk of Cancer (and 1 That Doesn't)] What's more, the "vaccine" appears to substantially boost the effectiveness of another type of immunotherapy called "checkpoint blockade" — the same therapy that former President Jimmy Carter received to treat his metastatic melanoma in 2015. ("Immunotherapy" refers to treatments that harness the immune system to fight cancer.) The two therapies "are remarkably synergistic," Brody told Live Science. So far, the researchers have only tested the combined therapies in mice, but they are optimistic that the combined therapies could benefit cancer patients, particularly those that aren't getting much benefit from current immunotherapy treatments. Cancer ''vaccine'' To be clear, the new treatment is not technically a vaccine — a term used for substances that provide long-lasting immunity against disease. (Still, the term "cancer vaccine" can be used to refer to therapies that train the immune system to fight cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.) Instead, the new treatment is a type of immunotherapy. It involves giving patients a series of injections with two types of immune stimulants. The therapy has three steps. First, patients are given an injection that contains a small molecule that recruits immune cells, called dendritic cells, into the tumor. Dendritic cells act like generals in an army, telling the immune system "soldiers" — known as T cells — what to do, Brody said. Next, patients are given a low dose of radiotherapy, which kills a few tumor cells so that they spill out "antigens," or proteins, that the immune system can learn to recognize, Brody said. Dendritic cells then take up these antigens and show them to the T cells. Then, patients are given a second injection that contains a molecule that activates the dendritic cells. "The dendritic cells are learning the lesson … and telling it to the T cells," which then can search the body for other cancer cells, Brody said. Synergistic therapies? In the new study, many of the 11 lymphoma patients saw a regression of their tumors that lasted for months to years. But several patients didn't benefit from the therapy. The researchers were also interested to see how their therapy worked with checkpoint blockade drugs, which essentially take the "brakes" off T cells so they better attack cancer cells. While this therapy can work well for some types of cancer (indeed, President Carter had complete remission after his checkpoint blockade treatment), it doesn't work well for others, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. When the researchers gave checkpoint blockade drugs to mice with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the treatment, not surprisingly, had no effect. But when they gave it in combination with their vaccine, about 75% of the mice went into long-term remission. The type of therapy tested in the new study is known as "in situ vaccination," because it involves injections directly into tumor cells. It isn't the first experimental "in situ" cancer vaccine — in 2018, researchers reported promising results of another in situ vaccine in mice. But the new treatment is different because it focuses on dendritic cells rather than T cells. The authors think "this could be … effective for many cancer types that are so far not benefiting much from cancer immunotherapy," Brody said. Dr. Mark Mulligan, director of the NYU Langone Vaccine Center, who wasn't involved with the study, said the new findings appear promising. Figuring out how to harness checkpoint blockade drugs for more cancer types "is an important area of ongoing research," Mulligan told Live Science. The data presented in mice, and early data from the human trial, "appear promising" in terms of enhancing the effect of checkpoint blockade treatments, he said. Still, Mulligan cautioned that the new study is the "earliest phase" of human testing, and that larger, more rigorous studies will now be needed to confirm the methods' safety and effectiveness. Dr. Pallawi Torka, an assistant professor of oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, who specializes in lymphoma, agreed the results are "preliminary yet promising." New immunotherapy approaches for treating non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are "sorely needed," said Torka, who was not involved with the new research. The effectiveness of the study approach is "welcome news," especially given the dramatic improvement seen in the mouse study when the treatment was combined with checkpoint blockade, she told Live Science. But Torka noted that the treatment approach used in the study is "quite cumbersome." Patients received nine daily injections of the first immune stimulant, followed by two doses of radiotherapy, and then eight injections of the second immune stimulant. "The next set of experiments will need to focus on simplifying, combining and reducing the number of steps needed" so that the approach could be tested at a number of medical sites, rather than a few specialized cancer centers, Torka said. Editor's note: This story was updated at 4:15 p.m. ET to include comments from Dr. Pallawi Torka. Originally published on Live Science.<doc-sep>The treatment "has broad implications for multiple types of cancer," said lead author, Dr. Joshua Brody, director of the lymphoma immunotherapy program. "This method could also increase the success of other immunotherapies such as checkpoint blockade." Researchers said some patients in the initial human trial went into full remission for months or even years. Researchers at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital tested the treatment in 11 patients with lymphoma. Their results were successful enough to warrant another clinical trial in March on lymphoma patients as well as breast and head-and-neck cancer. An experimental cancer "vaccine" showed promising results in a small clinical trial of patients with lymphoma, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. They refer to it as a vaccine because it causes a person's immune system to fight the disease, though it's not preventive like the flu shot. In this case, the treatment teaches the body to recognize tumors and attack them. Researchers created the treatment directly inside the tumor. To do this, they injected one tumor with a stimulant to recruit immune cells, treated the tumor with a low dose of radiation then injected it with a stimulant to activate immune cells. These activated immune cells then travel throughout the body, killing tumors wherever they find them. For more on investing in health-care innovation, click here to join CNBC at our Healthy Returns Summit in New York City on May 21. In three of the patients, the treatment shrunk not only the tumor that was treated but also other ones throughout the body, putting these patients into remission. "It's really promising, and the fact you get not only responses in treated areas, but areas outside the field [of treatment with radiation] is really significant," said Dr. Silvia Formenti, chairwoman of radiation oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, who was not involved in the study and is working on a similar treatment. While promising, the effect was observed in only three people and will need to be tested in larger trials before even going before the Food and Drug Administration for review. Dr. Eric Jacobsen, clinical director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's lymphoma program, said the results are exciting but cautioned more research needs to be done. Jacobsen was not involved in the study. "It's definitely proof of concept, but larger studies are definitely needed and additional strategies to try to get more than three out of 11 patients to respond," said Jacobsen, who is also developing a lymphoma vaccine, though with a slightly different approach. Researchers for decades have tried but failed to create cancer vaccines. New research on immunotherapy, or training a person's immune system to fight disease, has reinvigorated their efforts. The vaccine activates dendritic cells, which are responsible for initiating immune responses. These cells then instruct T-cells to attack tumors in a person's body, like generals instructing soldiers how to fight. "Generals don't really fight wars, they make the plans," Brody said. The research was funded by The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Cancer Research Institute and Merck. Celldex and Oncovir provided the materials for the clinical trial and the lab work. Correction: This story was revised to correct a quote from Dr. Formenti. She said "treated," not "three." WATCH: Pfizer's bet on cancer market uncertain<doc-sep>
Scientists have developed a cancer “vaccine” that can help trigger your immune system to attack cancer cells in your body, according to the results of a small but promising new study. The study, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine, investigated the results of the treatment in 11 patients with lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes and lymphatic system. While not all of the patients responded to the treatment, some went into full remission for months or years after receiving the “vaccine.” "What makes this study so exciting and important is that it further reinforces the fact that immunotherapy is likely to be more effective when you use a combination approach," says Anton Bilchik, MD, PhD, a professor of surgery and chief of medicine at John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif. "The fact that this vaccine is allowing the other immune mechanisms to fight cancer is very, very exciting." What is a cancer “vaccine,” exactly? While this is being called a “vaccine,” it actually doesn’t prevent someone from developing cancer, says study coauthor Joshua Brody, MD, director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “This is a therapeutic vaccine, not a preventative vaccine, i.e. it is used to treat people that already have the disease,” he says. While the "vaccine" was tested on lymphoma patients, Dr. Brody says his lab has already seen it work on other types of tumors. How does the “vaccine” work? The “vaccine” works by injecting two immune stimulants directly into a tumor. That 'tricks' the immune system into thinking that the tumor is like an infection,” Dr. Brody says. “Then, the activated immune cells travel throughout the body to kill tumors wherever they find them.” Another way to describe it is that the vaccine follows three steps: First, the treatment is injected into the tumor. Then, the tumor is treated with a low dose of radiation. Finally, it’s injected with another stimulant that activates the immune cells (which then go through the body and kill other tumors). It’s worth noting that this effect only put three of the 11 patients into remission, but researchers are hoping to increase its effectiveness in future trials. The “vaccine” also seems to boost the effectiveness of a form of immunotherapy called a checkpoint blockade (which received the 2018 Nobel Prize). “Checkpoint blockade 'releases the brakes' from anti-cancer immune cells so they can kill more effectively, but it doesn't generate or 'prime' anti-cancer immune cells,” Dr. Brody says. “Therefore a combination of the cancer ‘vaccine’ plus checkpoint blockade appears much more effective than either therapy alone.” Where does the “vaccine” go from here? Dr. Brody and his team are doing another clinical trial using the “vaccine” on additional patients with lymphoma, as well as patients with breast and head and neck cancers. They’re also testing the combination of the cancer “vaccine” with checkpoint blockades. This won’t be widely available to cancer patients anytime soon (it will have to go through a rigorous FDA approval first), and more research is needed to try to make the “vaccine” effective for more people. Still, it’s promising. Stay updated on the latest science-backed health, fitness, and nutrition news by signing up for the Prevention.com newsletter here.