Dendritic Cell Vaccine Plus Chemotherapy Significantly Prolongs Overall Survival in Recurrent Ovarian Cancer

Results of a clinical trial presented by Cibula and colleagues at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 50th Annual Meeting showed that a dendritic cell vaccine , a new immunotherapy treatment, significantly prolonged overall survival in women with recurrent ovarian cancer when added to standard chemotherapy.

What Is a Dendritic Cell Vaccine?

A dendritic cell vaccine is a type of adaptive cellular immunotherapy that uses dendritic cells to develop a personalized cancer treatment . Dendritic cells obtained from the patient are stimulated with tumor-cell antigens in the laboratory using genetic engineering methods. The stimulated dendritic cells act like teachers, presenting tumor-cell antigens on their surfaces to other immune system cells inside the body . Proliferating and maturing specifically in response to a particular antigen, T cells become active against it and secrete cytokines that stimulate other lymphocytes. This has paved the way for a promising treatment using dendritic cell vaccines. There is also an FDA-approved cancer vaccine prepared in this way: Sipuleucel-T

Study Findings

In this randomized phase-2 clinical trial, overall survival was compared in women receiving or not receiving dendritic cell-based immunotherapy alongside chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer.

According to the study results;

• No significant difference was seen in progression-free survival (the time treatment keeps the disease under control): 11.3 months in patients treated with dendritic cell-based immunotherapy plus chemotherapy and 10.1 months in those treated with chemotherapy alone.
• In contrast, overall survival showed a significant difference in those receiving dendritic cell vaccine plus chemotherapy compared with chemotherapy alone, as follows:
• - The 1-year survival rate was %72.4 with dendritic cell treatment plus chemotherapy and %40.9 with chemotherapy alone,
• median overall survival was 35.5 months in the combination arm and 22.1 months in the monotherapy arm, and
• adding the dendritic cell vaccine to chemotherapy was found to reduce the risk of death by %62.

David Cibula, a physician at the Gynecologic Oncology Center of Charles University Faculty of Medicine in Prague, stated that patients tolerated this dendritic cell vaccine treatment well because it caused almost no additional adverse effects beyond chemotherapy.

Dr. Cibula added that this approach produced some of the most promising results seen in ovarian cancer to date and announced that, for 2019, a larger phase-3 clinical trial was planned.