Research creates new personalised cancer treatment method

Researchers at Dartmouth University have developed a new process for creating a personalised vaccine, which could help patients with colorectal cancer develop an immune response against their tumours.

The study, which was detailed in the Clinical Cancer Care research journal, highlighted that the newly-developed dendritic cell vaccine could prevent the growth of additional metastases if used after surgical resection of metastatic tumours.

Over the course of the research, 26 patients who had tumours removed were given the vaccine a month after surgery and followed for 5.5 years. It was noted that over 60 percent of patients had experienced T-cell immune responses being induced against the patient's tumour.

Five years after the procedure, 63 percent of the patients who developed an immune response were tumour-free, compared to 18 percent who had not experienced the response.

Commenting on the findings, Dr Richard Barth Jr, chief of general surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, said that they suggest a new way to approach cancer treatment.

"Basically, we've worked out a way to use dendritic cells, which initiate immune responses, to induce an antitumor response," he added.

According to figures from Cancer Research UK, in 2007 there were 38,608 cases of colorectal cancer in the UK.