Vaccine Therapy Disappoints for Kidney Cancer

HOUSTON, July 3 -- The tumor-derived vaccine vitespen (Oncophage) does not prevent renal-cell carcinoma recurrence or improve survival despite promising early results, researchers said. Explain to interested patients that the study did not find any significant benefits to the use of vaccine therapy purported to activate an immune response against kidney cancer. Caution patients that the vaccine is not FDA approved or clinically available. The combined rate of recurrence and death was similar through almost two years of follow-up in nephrectomy patients given the autologous vaccine as adjuvant therapy compared with observation (37.7% versus 39.8%, P=0.506), reported Christopher Wood, M.D., of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center here, and colleagues online in The Lancet. After an additional 17 months of... [read full story]