Although the initial activities of the Advanced Therapeutics Program were focused in low grade Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma the program has recently entered into a collaboration with the Autologous Transplantation Unit at the Toronto Hospital to study a novel mini-transplant salvage therapy approach for patients with recurrent intermediate grade lymphoma .A clinical protocol has also been developed to assess the role of immunotherapy with Rituxan in patients with previously untreated mantle cell lymphoma .

Previous                                          Next

Patient's DNA culled for new cancer treatment
Monday, December 2, 2002 - Town Crier By Andrew Matte The mandate of the Advanced Therapeutics Program is to continue to expand these leading edge lymphoma research activities at the Sunnybrook campus. It will explore and develop novel approaches for the treatment of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and at the same time provide state of the art clinical care for patients. They aren't calling it a cure, but officials at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre say they have what they're calling a "personalized vaccine" to fight non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The crux of the new treatment includes harvesting a person's own DNA from a person's own lymphoma and then developing a individualized vaccine that could stave off the creation of more cancer cells. The vaccine, dubbed Id-KLH, is intended to induce immune responses and spur on antibodies that will aid the body in fighting cancer. Researchers have high hopes for the treatment because it's individualized, and is tailor-made to fight the sometimes very personalized versions of the cancer. And they also believe the vaccine could be one of the most accurate ways of battling the disease. "This custom-made therapeutic vaccine essentially activates and boosts the patient's immune system," said Dr. Neil Berinstein, an oncologist at Sunnybrook. "If the results are positive from this clinical trial, the impact will be huge." Currently, patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma have very little to pick from when it comes to treating the disease. Chemotherapy is a patient's best bet, however patients and doctors still don't exactly like the fact it causes damage not only to cancer cells but also to surrounding normal cells. This routinely leads to side effects such as nausea, vomiting and hair loss. The Id-KLH vaccine would treat lymphoma without causing such widespread damage to the rest of the body, doctors believe. "Unlike chemotherapy, which destroys every cell in sight, this is a rationally-based treatment that attacks only the cancer cells," Berinstein said. "The side effects that we witness from chemotherapy, like nausea and hair loss, are not present with this type of treatment." A new clinical trial is being done along with traditional chemotherapy treatments. Patients who have agreed to give the treatment a try undergo six months of regular chemotherapy, followed by a six-month rest period. After the rest period, patients receive injections of the trail vaccine, which is made using their own DNA. Berinstein said patients will benefit from chemotherapy before receiving the vaccine because the immune system responds best in-patients who have minimal amounts of lymphoma in the body. The first Toronto patient in the trial experiment was recently vaccinated at Sunnybrook. Patients or doctors interested in knowing more about the trials are encouraged to contact Sunnybrook's Regional Cancer Division of Clinical Trials at 416-480-5846