Test a vaccine against the deadliest brain tumor
posted in Cancer |Glioblastoma. It is one of the worst news you can give a doctor. We talk about the most common brain tumor and, in turn, the most deadly. It is the nightmare of the neurosurgeons who, before a diagnosis like this, can not offer hope of life beyond 15 months. Therefore, a team of doctors at the University Hospital of Navarra is launching a trial to test the efficacy of a new tool to fight this cancer. This is a vaccine targeted at the immune system to fight against malignant cells, while the patient is subjected to the usual treatment: surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
These three tracks are not enough for this cancer by the speed with which it develops and because the tumor masses and camouflage are introduced into the brain is extremely complex and that surgeons can be removed completely, thus the possibility that the disease reproduce is a fact in almost all cases. What is the role of the vaccine? The immune system to recognize, attack and finish with those remains carcinogens. They estimate that, to achieve this, the life expectancy of patients would be doubled.
The vaccine is composed of two elements, both taken from the patient. It’s a totally individual treatment can not be inoculated to different patients. And, for the same reason, it serves as a preventative treatment for healthy people. The two vaccine components are based on the blood of the patient and their tumor. On the one hand, researchers will make a patients blood collection and separate the white blood cells, and they will stay with monocytes. These are the cells that develop into dendritic cells, responsible for identifying the foreign bodies and direct the immune system to kill them. Monocytes become dendritic cells by culturing eight days at the Laboratory of Cellular Therapy Clinic.
Furthermore, patients enter into the operating room for you remove the tumor. At this point, the staff physicians have an ally that contributes significantly to the success of the new vaccine. It is a fluorescent microscope with getting differentiate the tumor and the brain, so you can remove it successfully.
Fluorescent Microscope
“So far, only managed to remove all in one in three cases because the surgeon could not distinguish the two materials. Now we are removing the entire 80 or 90% of tumors, “explains Ricardo Diez Valle, coordinator of the trial neurosurgeon. Before entering the operating room the patient provide a substance by mouth. This, together with the illumination of the microscope, does the surgeon see the tumor mass red and blue the brain.
What happens after the operation? The tumor is transferred to the laboratory to extract the second component of the vaccine: that indicate what the enemy to attack. The cancerous mass is frozen, defrost and radiates to get their protein. United cells taken from blood, generate an immune response against cancer remains the patient.
37 patients tested this method pioneered. Given the rapid development that is experiencing this type of tumor and how aggressive it is for the sufferer, doctors hope to have the first conclusions of this study in a year and a half. He recorded 6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which means every year more than 2,400 new hit in Spain.