New Vaccine for Brain Cancer Treatment
All the diseases that attack brain have very frightful effects. Not only they could cause permanent disabilities, they also could cause death. For example, brain cancer, which attacks the controlling function of the body nerves.
A specific vaccine has been developed to prevent brain cancer. This vaccine is in use in an experiment on Karen Vaneman, a brain cancer patient from Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University. She had to give 21 small bottles of her blood during the first week of every month.
Vaneman was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago. She suffered symptoms such as weakness and paralyzed left hand and was brought to the emergency room. At that time, the doctor diagnosed her as having a stroke and heart attack. Later they found out that she had Glioblastoma or GBM which is one of most common brain cancers.
Despite GBM brain cancer being very deathly, a team from Preston Robert Tisch had a different way to cure Vaneman. They operated on her and now receives intensive treatments after the operation.
“Other doctors might have told her that she only has six or nine months, or maybe one year to live, since GBM had no cure. But we told her that she could heal, with hard working and her self-belief,” said Dr. Henry Friedman, head of Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center.
Vaneman received new vaccine treatment that was produced by Pfizer. The new vaccine is called CDX-110. It has been produced not to prevent the cancer but to trigger body-immune responses, which could hit the cancer. The vaccine itself is extracted from EGFRviii (third factor of EGFR)—the protein found in 40 percent of tumor cells.
Dr. John Sampson, a surgeon who helped to develop the vaccine, explained that the team made the vaccine immune response to be more specific.
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