FRIDAY, Feb. 7, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- A customized vaccine against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) is undergoing a clinical trial to test its effectiveness.
The vaccine, tailored to individual patients, is made from a protein found on cells taken from the patient's lymph nodes. The protein is mixed with a substance that increases the immune system's ability to recognize a molecule on the surface of lymphoma cells.
That molecule is unique to the lymphoma cells of each individual patient. That means the molecule can be used as a specific target for developing immune system response.
The vaccine, called Favid, is injected into the patient following an autologous stem cell transplant. In that procedure, the patient's stem cells are removed before they receive high-dose chemotherapy. After the chemotherapy, the patient's stem cells are returned to help replenish the body's supply of blood cells.
The patients in the study were given the vaccine three months after the transplant. They received four monthly vaccine injections, and then a fifth injection two months after the fourth injection.
This Phase II clinical trial is meant to find out if post-transplant patients develop an immune response to the vaccine and, if they do, will the vaccine keep patients in remission longer than would be expected following transplant alone.
There has been an 81 percent increase in NHL cases since 1973. There were 54,000 new cases of NHL in the United States in 2002.
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