Health: a promising vaccine against colon and pancreas cancers

Therapeutic vaccines against cancer It continues to convince and could soon impose themselves in the arsenal of anti -cancer treatments. In addition, If this approach is still experimental. Similarly, the promising results of various clinical trials, including those of phase II presented at ASCO for skin cancer, have led many teams to try to decline the approach to other types of cancers.

In the last date. Nevertheless, an American vaccine which targets the mutations of the Kras gene in pancreatic and colon cancer made it possible to increase survival in a first trial led in a handful of patients. Moreover, “The results are early. Furthermore, but the approach has potential,” said Olivier Lantz, director of the Clinical Immunology Laboratory at the Curie Institute in Paris.

In general. Furthermore, vaccination against cancer works on the same principle as a “classic” vaccine: a small harmless part of the agent is introduced to fighting – for example a fragment of viruses or bacteria – so that the immune system learns to recognize and manufacture antibodies capable of neutralizing it.

In the case of cancer, the target is not a pathogen but the tumor cells themselves. Consequently, The idea is to directly deliver fragments of tumor protein to the body to “educate” the immune system to better identify. Furthermore, destroy the cancer cells that carry them. This is why they are said to be “therapeutic”: it is not a question of preventing the appearance of a disease whose patient is currently unscathed. but to fight against an already present disease.

Health: promising vaccine against colon

“It’s a very interesting technology”

Today there are two main types of therapeutic vaccines: peptide vaccines. which directly bring these fragments of tumor protein (“peptides”), and vaccines based on nucleic acids (viruses, DNA and Messenger RNA), which transmit genetic instruction to the cells allowing them to make the tumor fragments to be made to the immune system.

Called ELI-002 2P. the vaccine presented in this test, the results of which were published in “Nature Medicine”, is part of the first category. Its particularity: it contains small protein fragments corresponding to the KRAS mutations of the targeted cancer cells. as well as an adjuvant, the two being chemically modified to be able to settle in albumin, the most abundant circulating protein of blood plasma.

By using albumin as a “natural” means of transport. the fragments could be directly health: promising vaccine against colon transported to the lymph nodes, the training centers of immune cells. “It is a very interesting technology. because one of the limits of traditional therapeutic vaccines is their inability to effectively reach lymph nodes,” said Olivier Lantz.

The vaccine was tested in 25 patients (20 with pancreatic cancer. five of colorectal cancer) and 68% of them have developed strong responses from immune cells, T lymphocytes, mutant Kras proteins.

“Patients with the most robust T lymphocytes’ responses presented a much longer recurrence survival. ” said D^r Zev Wainberg, principal author and oncologist at the integrated center of Jonsson cancer of the University of California, in Los Angeles. The average overall survival was indeed twenty-nine months after vaccination. average survival without recurrence of fifteen months, “that is much more than what we usually expect,” insists the oncologist.

Extension of the immune response

Another notable result: in 67% of participants. researchers observed an extension of the immune response («antigen spreading») other mutations specific to the patient’s tumor, but not initially targeted by the vaccine. “It is an encouraging signal. because it shows that you can trigger a wider protective response without using a fully personalized vaccine for each mutation,” says the D^r Wainberg.

Furthermore. the authors have managed to stimulate the activity of the two subtypes of T lymphocytes, called CD4+ and CD8+, capable of acting directly or indirectly on tumor cells, “which is usually difficult, specifies the p^r Lantz. Generally, CD8+ lymphocytes are difficult to activate by peptide vaccines. ”

Other more -scale trials are however necessary to assess the real efficiency of this approach. Several things could limit health: promising vaccine against colon it, warns the p^r Lantz. First. the fact that not all patients with these cancers have KRAS mutations, which would, in fact, make the vaccine ineffective.

“On the other hand. patients included in the trial had few residual signs of the disease after standard treatments (chemotherapy, immunotherapy), which could” optimize “the results on survival, underlines the p^r Lantz. This is why it is important to check this data on a group of patients more advanced in the disease. ”

This article on cancer treatment was written by “Le Figaro”French member of health: promising vaccine against colon the Lena information network.

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