Breast Cancer Vaccines as Therapy: Another Chapter

The promise of cancer vaccines to prevent or treat breast cancer has been tantalizing for decades, but to date the promise has not translated into an approved therapy. Although cancer vaccines have demonstrated an ability to produce an immune response, with few exceptions, improvements in clinical outcomes have been harder to demonstrate.

Now, in a collaborative effort among the National Cancer Institute, Therion Biologics Institute, and academic investigators, a phase II randomized trial comparing docetaxel alone or in combination with the PANVAC vaccine has been conducted in patients with metastatic breast cancer. PANVAC (CEA-MUC-1-TRICOM) is a viral-vector cancer vaccine consisting of a priming dose with recombinant vaccinia vector and su…