Two-Step Immunotherapy Shows Promise Against Advanced Ovarian Cancer

In a small study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research earlier this month, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania reported success with a new two-step immunotherapy approach to treating advanced ovarian cancer when combined with chemotherapy.

The process begins with treatment with a personalized vaccine, which is created from the patient’s own dendritic cells.  The vaccine is followed up with adoptive T-cell therapy, in which immune cells which have been removed from the patient, stimulated, and expanded in a lab, are re-injected into the patient.

In 65% of 31 patients, the initial vaccine alone led to either stable disease, or a partial response.  A subset of 11 patients who received the adoptive T-cell therapy had some clinical benefit.

Click here to read more about this study.