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| |  ASCO MEETING: Vaccine Increases Survival In Ovarian, Breast Cancer Patients ATLANTA, GA -- May 17, 1999 -- A new study suggests that the administration of an experimental cancer vaccine following autologous stem cell transplant can increase survival and decrease relapse in ovarian and breast cancer patients when compared to the stem cell transplant procedure alone. The data was presented this weekend at the 35th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Atlanta. The research team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, led by Leona Holmberg, M.D., Ph.D., and Brenda Sandmaier, M.D., treated 40 cancer patients (11 high-risk stage II/III breast, 22 stage IV breast and seven stage III/IV ovarian) with high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous/syngeneic stem cell transplantation. Twenty-six of the 40 patients also received five doses of Biomira, Inc.’s Theratope(R) vaccine (STn-KLH), a therapeutic vaccine that induces the body's immune system to mount a response against cancerous cells. All patients were treated between Sept. 1, 1995 and Nov. 18, 1997. To gain preliminary evidence of the potential efficacy of the Theratope vaccine, the outcome of vaccinated patients was retrospectively compared to the outcome of patients not vaccinated. Investigators found that the chance of death was more than two times greater among patients in the control group compared to patients vaccinated with Theratope vaccine. The chance of relapse was approximately 1.7 times greater for patients in the control group compared to those vaccinated. In addition, those vaccinated patients with the highest amount of specific killing activity against STn-bearing cancer cells appeared to remain the longest in remission. "Theratope vaccine was well tolerated after autologous stem cell transplant and appeared to decrease the relative risk for relapse and death,” Dr. Holmberg said. "These results need to be considered within the debate over hematopoietic stem cell transplant as a treatment for advanced stage IV disease." "The use of immunotherapy is more likely to be successful when there is significant reduction in tumour burden," Dr. Sandmaier added. "In advanced disease states, more aggressive therapy combined with therapy to stimulate the patient's own immune system may prove to be effective therapy." The cancer vaccine used in the study, Theratope vaccine, is currently being evaluated in a pivotal Phase III clinical trial which will involve 900 evaluable patients with metastatic breast cancer at approximately 75 sites world-wide.
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