Baby Boomer Awareness

With Awareness week approaching, what better time to acknowledge the many voluntary patients, stepping up and donating their time and their bodies, for science! Without medical trials, there would be no method for testing, without testing, there would be no clues to treatment or tests to screen. These souls give us all hope-Undergoing such trials definitely path the way for better treatments for those yet to be diagnosed. Of course, those working dilligently behind the scenes, the devoted researchers, checking slide after slide, looking for the smallest change, taking so many notes, these are our other unsung heroes! They strive to make this world a better place to LIVE in..they do what it takes to protect the future of each generation, always seeking the better treatment, always hoping to find that cure. Show your support this month and support the awareness message! In Australia, the awareness week officially kicks off Sunday 24th February - March 2nd 2008. See http://www.ovca.org for events across Australia.

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Ovarian cancer treatment ‘promising’ by Adam Bennett

A TRIAL of an experimental ovarian cancer treatment had "exceeded expectations", paving the way for further testing, Biotech company Prima BioMed said today.

The company said four of 21 patients with late-stage ovarian cancer in the trial had a positive clinical response or stabilisation of the disease.

It would now plan the next stage of trials of the CVac treatment, involving 100-200 patients with early-stage ovarian cancer in Australia and New Zealand, to begin in the next 12 months.

The trial was done in Melbourne’s Austin Hospital, with patients with incurable advanced ovarian cancer given a course of seven injections over a 12-month period.

Associate Professor Paul Mitchell, director of cancer services at Austin Hospital and principle investigating oncologist, said the results demonstrated a "clear benefit in patients with progressive ovarian cancer".

"It suggests that CVac is a promising new approach for ovarian cancer and warrants further clinical investigation," he said.

"As far as we’re concerned we’ve got evidence that for some patients with incurable ovarian cancer, the CVac vaccine has proven to be an effective treatment with minimal side effects.
"It’s been very promising."

CVac is a cell therapy that takes an ovarian cancer sufferer’s dendritic cells - a rare type of white blood cell that induces immunity - primes or boosts them with the CVac vaccine, before they’re reinjected into the patient.

Exposure to CVac, a combination of a protein and a sugar which is commonly on the surface of cancer cells, is designed to train the cells recognise the cancer, so they then target the disease when reintroduced to the body.

Prima BioMed’s chief scientific officer, Associate Professor Bruce Loveland, said he was pleased by the results.

"These results indicate the potential of dendritic cell therapy and the CVac approach to harness the immune system to intervene in tumour growth, even in patients with advanced disease," he said.

"The question now is whether we can get greater effect by treating women with ovarian cancer early in the course of their disease," Prof Mitchell said.

"We’re interested in terms of how well the vaccine will perform where we can make a substantial improvement in terms of delay of the cancer returning, and hopefully some benefits for survival."

The results of the next trial are expected to be released in three years.

If successful, the company will then move to more trials in the US and seek US Food and Drug Administration approval.

Courtesy: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,21380538-5003402,00.html?from=public_rss