Personalized Vaccine in New Leukemia Treatment

An ongoing pilot study of a personalized heat shock protein in combination with Gleevec (imatinib mesylate) for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has shown that five out of five evaluable patients showed objective clinical responses, including two patients who had complete molecular responses.

The heat shock protein (HSP70) is a personalized cancer vaccine based on proprietary technology of Antigenics, Inc. (New York, NY, USA; www.antigenics.com). Derived from each patient's blood, the vaccine is designed to capture the antigenic fingerprint of the patient's particular cancer to reprogram the body's immune system to target and destroy only the cells bearing this fingerprint. The pilot study was conducted by Dr. Zihai Li and colleagues at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine (Farmington, USA).

In contrast to the study's findings, only 10% of patients treated with Gleevec alone achieved responses using the same criteria, says Antigenics. "Gleevec controls blood counts in most CML patients but fewer than 10% are PCR-negative. By eliminating all of the CML cells, combination treatment with Gleevec and HSP70 vaccine opens up the possibility of a cure,” said Jonathan J. Lewis, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer of Antigenics.




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