Clapper, Patti, Schweizer and Mason

Malignant mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Most patients diagnosed with mesothelioma have a known occupational exposure to asbestos. It can take decades for symptoms of mesothelioma to develop, making diagnosis and treatment difficult. Mesothelioma tumors can form in the lining of the pleura (lungs), peritonea (abdomen), or pericardium (heart).    The most common form is malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).

 

Standard medical and surgical treatments of mesothelioma have shown limited effects and, to date, the disease remains incurable. A recent report of a new vaccine for fighting mesothelioma was recently released, giving hope that perhaps a new treatment will have more successful results.

 

Researchers in the Netherlands have been investigating a vaccine that triggers the mesothelioma patients own immune system to attack the malignant cells and stop proliferation of the disease.   Unlike childhood vaccines that prevent disease in the first place, cancer vaccines are therapeutic but not preventative.   The mesothelioma vaccine in this study caused tumor regression by triggering the patient’s own immune system to fight mesothelioma cells. Researchers infused the dendritic cells of patients with mesothelioma with antigen from their tumors, which then activated the immune system and provided antitumor effects. This type of vaccine is often referred to as DC- based and is being explored in phase I and II clinical trials.

 

Vaccines work by administering an agent that then stimulates the immune system to fight against any foreign substances, called antigens, of the vaccine.   The immunized person then develops immunity so that when later exposed to the antigen, the immune system will be activated to destroy the antigen and existing cancer cells. In other words, the goal of the vaccine is to create an immune response within the patient’s body that leads to recognition and destruction of the mesothelioma malignant cells. 

 

As the number of mesothelioma cases is expected to continue to rise in the coming years, the results of this study give hope of extending survival time and perhaps one day finding a cure. For more information, see the full report published in the American Thoracic Society’s Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine or visit the National Cancer Institute.