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A Publication for Baylor Scott & White Health ’ s Oncology Program
“ We ’ re trying to innovate . We ’ re trying to push the field forward . We ’ re trying to do something for this cancer that has such a great unmet medical need ,” she said .
The first of these women on the study , “ Safety study of chemotherapy combined with dendritic cell vaccine to treat breast cancer ,” was dosed in December 2013 . Since then , two have died from disease recurrence . “ The other eight remain without any detectable disease ,” Dr . O ’ Shaughnessy said .
“ These patients all had very high risk of dying from triple-negative breast cancer without effective therapy ,” she said . “ The whole idea is to wake up these dendritic cells , which basically are not functioning . Their immune system was not working to kill off this cancer .”
Genomic-driven targeted therapies can also help TNBC patients , but these cancers are often driven by multiple mutations . What if there are other mutations ready to step to the plate and take over ? “ When we think about targeted therapies , we think about a drug targeted against one mutation or one driving [ cellular ] pathway in the cancer ,” Dr . O ’ Shaughnessy said .
“ That ’ s the beauty of an immunotherapy . If you can get the immune system stimulated against the cancer , it will just kill it , regardless of how many mutations there are .”
Still , she is not ready to talk about this clinical trial as promising just yet . She had hoped that more of the women in the study would have registered a pathological complete response ( PCR ), meaning no cancer in their breast or lymph nodes , prior to surgery . As it was , approximately half recorded a PCR , about the same as standard chemotherapy .
One outstanding question is whether the dendritic cell therapy activated the immune system and either held off or eradicated any residual microscopic disease . As she waits to see if the eight women in the study will remain free of cancer for at least three years , Dr . O ’ Shaughnessy is hopeful that the vaccine will continue to act as a maintenance drug .
This study was funded by the Amy T . Selkirk Fund for Breast Cancer Immunotherapy , part of Baylor Health Care System Foundation .