Researchers at the Vall d’hebron of Barcelona shown on a preliminary investigation promising results with vaccines, immunotherapy, custom

The cross-Spanish against glioblastoma

immunotherapy, a strategy that seeks to lead and empower your own body’s defenses to locate and destroy the cancer, is giving very good results in some areas of oncology. However, others are reluctant to succumb to its effects.

glioblastoma, for example, is one of those tumors to immunotherapy do not just come in, although in recent times significant steps have been taken to change this reality.

a few months Ago, a study signed by the Spanish Juan Fueyo and Candela Gomez-Manzano showed the effectiveness of an experimental treatment that uses an adenovirus to get the patient’s immune system kill tumor cells. The treatment managed to extend the life of some patients more than four years, when the average survival with this tumor, one of the most aggressive, is around a year.

Using a strategy different, this Tuesday, researchers of the Vall d’hebron Hospital of Barcelona have presented the promising results of international work that is based on the development of vaccines custom that also manage to ‘wake up’ the defences against glioblastoma.

Their conclusions are still preliminary since the research is in phase I, are published in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

The scientists, who are part of the Consortium of Vaccination Actively Custom of Glioma (GAPVAC), a network that encompasses researchers from various european countries, have tested a new strategy of approach that, as explained, shows that the immunotherapy custom is viable in this type of cancer. For the moment, it has been tested on 15 patients in six hospitals of the continent.

specifically, the researchers developed two types of vaccines. In a first moment, and after analyzing the characteristics of 30 glioblastomas, created a that contained fragments of proteins common in these tumors. Your goal is that, as with the measles vaccine, the body recognizes these proteins and generate antibodies against them.

After undergoing a surgery to remove the tumor and while receiving chemotherapy, patients began receiving doses of this vaccine by subcutaneous injection.

About three months later, 11 of these individuals may also receive a vaccine ‘custom’, that is to say, “developed from the qualities and specific mutations who had their tumors,” says Francisco Martínez-Ricarte, researcher of the Research Group in Neurotraumatología and Neurosurgery of the Hospital Vall d’hebron of Barcelona and one of the signers of the job.

“to Get each one of these shots is very time-consuming,” adds the specialist, who clarifies that in order to customize the treatment there is to perform mass spectrometry, a genetic sequencing of the last generation, microarray, Mrna, or analysis of immune repertoire, among other tests.

The results of the study showed that the vaccines were tolerated, and “generated an immune response persistent”, including the activation of memory T lymphocytes, the cells responsible for the immune response, explains Martínez-Ricarte.

The specialist reminds that the research was not designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the therapy, but their safety (the first step of the research), but anticipates that the results are “very promising,” and “encourage to continue working in this line”.

So, they found that “patients treated lived an average of 29 months, when the half-life in these cases is around 14 months.” In the same way, the time free of disease in the group that received the treatment was around 15 months. Any way, none of the patients treated managed to fully overcome the disease.

“we can Not say that it improves the prognosis, but the results of the strategy are promising,” he says.

In the same number, other research also shows the results of another type of vaccine, personalized anti-glioblastoma. In this case, the strategy was not effective in the particular case of patients who were receiving treatment with a drug that is commonly used in this type of cancer.

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