A therapy that may block further metastasis from breast cancer is being studied in the lab. The monoclonal antibody, known as JAA-F11, was shown to create a survival advantage in mice with breast cancer and substantially reduce the development of lung metastasis.

The monoclonal antibody inhibited the adhesion to the breast tumor cells to endothelial cells, which would block a key step in metastasis. The study showed that 53 percent of treated mice had no visible lung metastasis.

Dr. Rittenhouse-Olson, of the University at Buffalo, New York, concluded "If JAA-F11 were linked to a radioactive compound, it may be successful in conjunction with current chemotherapy in decreasing or eliminating the tumor".

Understanding more about antibodies, antigens and monoclonal antibodies:

Disease causing bacteria and viruses, known as antigens, are recognized by the body's own immune system as invaders. Our natural defenses against these infectious agents are antibodies, proteins that seek out the antigens and help destroy them.

Each antibody binds to and attacks one specific antigen. Antibodies also can continue resistance, for example, we can acquire chickenpox when we are children and most times never experience the disease again.

This characteristic of antibodies achieving resistance makes it possible to develop vaccines. A vaccine when entered into the body, stimulates the production of antibodies against the specific antigen.

Monoclonal antibody technology allow us to produce large amounts of pure antibodies obtaining cells that produce antibodies naturally, in effect having a factory to produce antibodies that worked around the clock. The antibodies are called monoclonal because they come from only one type of cell.

At this time, there are 200 companies engaged in 600 clinical trials that involve 340 immunotherapy drugs -- all under study in an attempt to assist in the treatment of 40 different cancers. The top five targeted cancers are melanoma, breast, lung, prostate, and colorectal.

While antibody studies are the top headline-makers right now, cancer vaccines are following behind. With the recent approval of Gardasil -- the cervical cancer vaccine -- the push for more vaccine options will become strong. Future industry challenges also include discovering strong antigens, effective immunomodulators, and suitable delivery technologies.

Powerful drugs like Avastin, Erbitux, and Rituxan are just the precursors to what might lie ahead for cancer patients as a result of this widespread effort to knock cancer out of the ballpark.

Last month, we posted information about NicVAX -- an experimental nicotine quit smoking vaccine and more recently we posted information about Chantix -- a drug that might quadruple success for smokers who want to quit. So this post is not about information we have already posted, but about a few interesting facts I came across while reading a Washington Post news feature Doctors Test Anti-Smoking Vaccine.

The reporter mentions a study participant in the anti-smoking vaccine trial currently underway, and said that he has smoked nearly half a million cigarettes in half a century. That is an astonding number of cigarettes, and I don't know that many smokers actually stop to do the math. The news story also quotes Dr. J. Taylor Hays, a smoking cessation expert at the Mayo Clinic, who helped test Chantix, as saying, "The typical patient is a 30-year-old woman who says, 'If I gain 5 pounds, I'm going back,'" referring to women who try quit smoking programs and nicotine replacement aids. There might be safer weight-loss programs out there that do not run the risk of cancer outcome. Just a suggestion.

The article goes on the state that of the more than 48 million smokers in the United States, 40 percent each year make a serious attempt to quit, but fewer than five percent succeed long-term. Two-thirds go back to smoking within a month.

Addiction to cigarettes has been compared to the power of heroin addiction, but it is not impossible to stop and if the researchers keep focusing on better ways to help people quit smoking, everybody wins. Well -- except for the tobacco industry -- but who cares about companies in the business of doing harm.

The Washington Post had done a nice feature on the anti-smoking vaccines being tested with Doctors Test Anti-Smoking Vaccine. I recommend the read.

The new cervical cancer vaccine has certainly brought to light a great deal of information about one of the major causes of cervical cancer -- the human papilloma virus, HPV. According to statistics, 50 percent of sexually active adults are infected with HPV. In most cases, a woman will not experience any symptoms if she has contracted HPV through sexual activity, and HPV resolves itself in most cases. However, in a small number of cases, a woman infected with HPV will go on to develop cervical cancer.

University of Washington researchers have released a report stating that the proper use of condoms can offer effective protection against infection from the human papilloma virus, HPV, about 70 percent of the time for young sexually-active females. Condoms need to be used with every sexual encounter. The researchers of this study emphasize that the practice of using condoms does not afford 100 percent protection.

The new cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, is reported to offer 100 percent protection from HPV infection, but is only recommended for young girls before they become sexually active. Condoms might provide some protection for women already sexually-active and not candidates for the cancer vaccine.

As we begin to see cancer vaccines come to market meant to prevent cancer, drug makers such as GlaxoSmithKline are experimenting with cancer vaccines for patients already diagnosed with cancer. One experimental vaccine, MAGE-3, is showing some promise in clinical trials to prevent a recurrence of lung cancer is set to enter Phase III clinical trials early next year.

According to GlaxoSmithKline, the liver cancer vaccine designed to help liver cancer patients from experiencing a recurrence of their cancer, is based on priming the immune system to attack tumors. Called a therapeutic vaccine, the drug maker is optimistic they are onto something that might prove to have a significant benefit to lung cancer patients and estimate the vaccine might be available in a couple of years.

Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine expected to receive FDA approval any day now, and proven to provide women 100 percent protection against cervical cancer, might also offer the same level of protection against vulvar and vaginal cancers. Finnish researchers of the study that made the discovery note that while vulvar and vaginal cancers are less common than cervical cancer, more younger women are being diagnosed with vulvar and vaginal cancers.

The cervical cancer vaccines set to be approved this year guard against human papillomavirus, HPV -- a virus known to lead to cervical cancer. HPV is responsible for all cases of cervical cancers and is present in 80 percent of the 6,000 cases of vaginal and vulvar cancers diagnosed in the United States each year.

In a separate study, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have announced that the cervical cancer vaccine might lead to less cancer of the head and neck. "If we vaccinate everybody in the U.S., we could probably impact head and neck cancer in approximately 20 years," said Marshall Posner, director of the head and neck oncology program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The international health group PATH has received an infusion of cash from Microsoft's Bill Gates to support the launch of a program that will provide the new cervical cancer vaccines to women in poor countries. With a $27.8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH will begin in India, Peru, Uganda and Vietnam. Of the 250,000 women who die from cervical cancer each year, most of them live in the world's poorest countries. 

The sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus, HPV, is believed to be responsible for nearly three-fourths of cervical cancer diagnosis. Two cervical cancer vaccines, Merck's Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, will become available this year to protect women from the virus. In previous posts, we wondered what would happen to women who live in poor countries and how the cancer vaccine would be made available for them. This sounds like a start.

In a study just released by Dartmouth Medical School researchers, not all cervical cancer vaccines work the same or offer the same benefits. Comparing Cervarix to Gardasil, both cervical cancer vaccines designed to protect against the human papillomavirus, HPV, found Cervarix to be longer-lasting and provides protection against multiple strains of virus linked to the development of cancer. Gardasil does not offer these same benefits. Gardasil does offer protection against HPV strains associated with genital warts, which Cervarix does not offer.

Cervarix offers high level protection against HPV types 16 and 18 for up to 4.5 years, and cross-protects against HPV-45 and 31, two other strains of the virus associated with cancer. According to the researchers, the long-term response appears to be due to the use of the adjuvant ASO4 with Cervarix rather than the adjuvant alum that is used in the Gardasil vaccine. This is significant because a vaccine that uses adjuvant alum needs to be administered around the time of exposure, so timing is important to vaccine protection. However, a vaccine that uses adjuvant ASO4 can be administered at any time to offer protection. Gardasil uses adjuvant alum, Cervarix uses adjuvant ASO4. When these cervical cancer vaccines are approved for use, I wonder if women are going to faced with the decision of what type of protection they want and in what form. Or will they find a way to combine the benefits of both into one vaccine? Important information for women to keep in mind when the vaccine becomes available, because there are critical differences between the two vaccines mentioned in this post. 

Currently, cancer vaccines to treat cancer have reported a mere 2 to 3 percent success rate in clinical trials. Researchers defend the vaccines by suggesting that the lack of higher success rate are a result of the way vaccines are tested, not the fact that the vaccines are ineffective. In U.S. News & World Report, Do cancer treatment vaccines really work?, Josh Fischman takes a simple and straightforward look at the difficulty in proving a cancer vaccine will work. Because ideally, a drug needs to be shown to be effective and safe, before it is approved as a treatment for cancer. That's why we have clinical trials.

But, as Fischman points out, the problem as to why cancer vaccines to treat cancer are showing such poor results in clinical trials is a two-handed issue. First, the cancer vaccines are being tested on cancer patients who have already been through treatments for cancer. Cancer treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, seriously damage the immune system because they do not target just the cancer cells, but healthy cells. So, perhaps it is too late to revive what is left of an exhausted immune system by the time a cancer vaccine is tried. On the other hand, if a cancer patient is doing well with conventional cancer treatment, Fischman says, "It'd be cruel to take someone off a drug that's helping them and ask them to try an experimental drug that may not help at all." Until they can devise another way to test cancer vaccines for treating existing cancer, the vaccines seem doomed to continual failure in clinical trials.

In a related post, Cancer vaccine: a peek behind the cancer business curtain, a medical and healthcare technology consulting firm looks at the challenges facing cancer vaccines ever coming to market because of clinical trial failures.

According to the Cancer Research of UK, one study estimates  more than 1.8 million new cases of virus-associated cancer are diagnosed world-wide each year. The group believes that progress can be made to prevent additional cases of cancer by focusing on vaccines to battle the viruses. While very few individuals with viruses actually go on to develop cancer, the possibility of preventing that percentage, estimated to be at about 25 percent world wide, is enticing to many researchers. In particular, cervical cancer research has seen some exciting advancement this year with the use of the vaccine that helps curb infection from the human papilloma virus (HPV).  Other cancers that have been linked to viruses are: stomach, liver, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (nasal passages), lymphomas and leukemia.