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Anyone On or Starting Vaccine Trial


Katy66

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Saw hubby's ONC yesterday and he is officially taking a much needed break from checmo. Scans were good, not a lot of change but stable. It had only been two weeks since last scan. I'm happy for the break and know he needs but there is a part of me that says "If he isn't doing chemo then what are we doing to fight this?" Gotta work past that!

They talked to us about vaccine clinical trial. I read about it months ago but we weren't ready for it then so I've got to research more. Just wondering what you guys knew about it. This is apparently a fairly new phase of the study. He has to be a month out from his last chemo to start.

Hubby is still having some coughing side effects from the radiation (due to swelling in the lung). They gave him an extended run of steroids and some antibiotics to be on the safe side. They also scheduled him an ENT appt to discuss having his vocal cord repaired. You can't imagine how nice it would be to hear his voice, unhoarse, again.

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There is one Vaccine that is being developed at the U of Miami by by Dr. Eckhard Podack...is this the one? This vaccine utilizes lung tumor cell secretions that facilitate the generation of killer cells. Specfically this is a NSCLC treatment.

Our foundation has helped fund this research through the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy.

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There have been quite a few vaccine trials. I looked at some right after my surgery, but the only ones I was elgible for were far away, and gave half of the patients placebos. I wasn't willing to travel for a 50/50 shot at trial vaccine treatment.

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Katy-

I just discussed this with my PA yesterday - not that I need one right now but was looking down the road.

She said Phase 3 and 4 won't want me - not fresh meat - but I might be able to get into a Phase 1 or 2. Phase 1 scares me but she told me that my onc will look at the way the drug works. She says I am lucky because 50% of his time is spent on reasearch so he has a better understanding of how they work. And my Dr. is Dr. Pennel over at cancergrace so maybe when you find out the name of the trial you might want to run it past him and get an opinion.

Good luck to the both of you

Hus - Patti B.

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Bud - I have on several occasions read Dr. West's post, carefully, and in its entirety, and nowhere do I see him indicating he thinks this trial is a "sham". He closes as follows:

"Finally, I think it will be challenging to get enough patients enrolled who have shown stable disease or responded to first line therapy and are now off of treatment, not yet on second line therapy, and not yet progressing. That’s really threading a needle, and trials that have had such a narrow window for enrollment have had a very difficult time accruing patients.

That said, this work looks intriguing enough that I really hope I’m wrong, that many patients are interested in enrolling and the trial accrues quickly. I’d be interested to hear whether people here would be willing to enroll on such a trial, or whether they would be unwilling to subject themselves to be randomized to a placebo in the maintenance setting after first line treatment."

They are having problems getting enough people into the trial and are currently broadening their parameters in hopes of increasing the number so that the trial can be completed. I'm told this will hopefully be accomplished by December.

This is a "trial" - not a guarantee of certain success. If it weren't for trials, some of which work, and some of which don't, we wouldn't have any of the new drugs available now.

Personally, I don't find your attitude helpful at all.

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