I just want to echo Katie's comments about the Doctors at Mary Crowley. Pam is enrolled in the EP-2101 vaccine trial at Mary Crowley and we have had a good experience there.
Many of the vaccines in clinical development are in stage 1/2 trials and consequently are being tested on patients with advanced stages of disease. Unfortuneately, sometimes at that point, the disease has affected the immune system rendering it unable to be "powered" by the vaccine. Also, the vaccines, when effective, tend to take a little bit of time to work.
We were fortunate that Pam's disease, although classified as stage IV, was stable after chemo so she had a functioning immune system and time to respond to the vaccine.
Anyway, for the reasons noted above, it seems that the vaccines will eventually be an even more attractive option for earlier stage patients after an initial round of chemo/radiation. I think that's why the BLP vaccine by Merck was so successful for stage 3b patients.
I believe they are close to starting the large scale stage 3 trial for the Merck BLP vaccine.