Brain Cancer Vaccine

I literly just watched the news here in Boston and there is a Boston resident traveling to and from Duke in Durham, N.C. where he is part of a clinical trial for this "vaccine". It is called a vaccine b/c it forces the body to fight the tumor.  This particular man was 41 yrs. old when dx and given 8-11 months.  At this point he has lived double his life expectancy and his cancer is IN REMISSION!!!!!

Keep fighting warriors, there is hope!!!

Dana

The news channel was WBZ News in Boston if you want to go on-line and check it out 

Just be careful that you don't fill people with false hope.  These are still trials....

They test for genetic markers on most of these vaccines, and a good % of the population is not eligible.    They also have pretty strict charateristics they are looking for in terms of tumor size, overall health,  and the lack of progression.  

I went down this road with my wife - and she was perfect candidate except for the EGFR expression.

On 6/2/2008 Hopefully wrote:

Be careful not to fill people heads with no hope.  My mom died a year ago from this and she did trials in order to try to extend her life. POSITIVE thoughts are always better.

I am the first to offer anyone a hopeful message.   Being pragmatic and realistic is not mutually exclusive with optimism.   If you read my comments, I was very specific - these vaccines are offered to a small select group of people with specific expressed characteristics. Simply put, the studies are cherry picking the best candidates, then comparing them to the overall median survivability.   I speak not from opinion, but from experiance.

As an example, one study picks from those people that have no less than a 100% gross total resection and have very high KPS scores.   There have been a number of statistical studies that demonstrate a significant survivability improvement when the resection is 100% and when the measured deficit is small.   So to me the question is simple -  are the vaccine results based on 'real math' or 'false math' ?   

I work with statistics each and every day.   Without sounding like a pompous a** - I understand the math that is being used.   I offer that everyone should try everything they can to fight GBM....  but we are not yet at a wonder drug or treatment.  Beating GBM is a fight -

 One last thought.   Median surviviability is the half way point in a sample of survivability.   Half the people live longer than the median.   They people in the longer term survivor cohort are younger (<45 YO), have a greater % resection, have fewer deficits (KPS score) , are in better health, have little other medical isses, and have a positive outlook.  

It's my understanding that the window is very small to receive a vaccine. According to our neuro-oncologist you have to have 100% resection which is very rare with GBM due to cancer cell infiltration.

L

Amen Partick! Reminds me of my college days of stats. ( I hated that class) this experience has made me appreciate it now.

When your healthy, going into any illness your chances are better. Stats are difficult due to so many variables in patients.Blind studies,control groups it's hard to put it all together and know which group fits your particular set of circumstances and sometimes none of them do. 

Having" hope" "keeping the faith" all of those postive mind sets are definitly good tools for everyone emotionally and we all need them or else we have "depression" and that leads to other illnesses and setbacks. Who would'nt be a least a bit depressed with this dx.Living in the moment with the attitude of "I'm here today and how can I make the best of it in all areas of our life" has helped us stay positive.

The answers and the cures for GBM are on the horizon, but we can't just"hope" for a cure, good research will have to come first. GBM survivors to this date are paving the way. While we have been told GBM is not hereditary and this might sound a little grim,but my hs plans to donate his brain for GBM research. Hopefully (there's that word again) this might help with advances for our children, grandchildren and others.

L