Dendritic cell vaccine therapy

Geoff,
this is a great link. Thank you so much.
Marion

My daughter Jules is trying to get some data from the Duderstadt clinic about numbers of patients treated, response rates, etc. In the meantime, I felt it’s worth posting a couple of paragrahs referring to DC therapy from their website

http://immuntherapie.net/cms/98/?i=1.0.0.0.98..483c1c7e3c266f7f881680081e051289.de

“in Germany, Switzerland and the USA it has already shown some success in clinical trials. However, this form of tumor treatment is still in various phases of research which are supposed to test if this method really helps to achieve a regression of tumors”

and

“At best the immune system of the patient will fight the tumor. Published studies to date present only singular cases of successful immunotherapy treatments”

I’m still very enthusiastic to explore the DC vaccine approach but it’s not (yet) the silver bullet we all seek – but I feel that this must be the future for cancer treatment. In the meantime I agree fully with Marion when she says that DC treatment may build the immune system to help it resist cancer growth. And in any case, unlike chemotherapy, the side effects appear minimal.

Geoff

I was wondering whether we could get another slant on DC therapy by looking at clinical trials.

I noticed that there was a Ph1 clinical trial of DC therapy at Duke Uniiversity in N Carolina, it covered various cancers including gastrointestinal. Seems like the trial completed in June 2006. Although a Ph 1 trial, the objectives included a preliminary assessment of clinical response. Is it possible in the US to gain access to initial results ? Here’s the trial:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00027534

I’m not aware of any other DC trials in the US but maybe I didn’t search properly. I am aware of a couple of planned Ph1 DC trials here in the UK but these are some months away. I’m not eligible for any UK trials due to my low platelets. Hence my interest in what’s going on in Germany.

Geoff

I have not been successful in re-connecting with Dr. Gorter since yesterday although I recall him mentioning a four to six week response time in order to review and correct my transcript. I will continue to stay in touch with him expecting to hear from him soon.
Unfortunately, I am left with many unanswered questions in re: to the effectiveness and eventual positive outcome of dentritic cell therapy. Hopefully, someone has experienced the treatment personally, and is able to pass on information first hand.
I do understand that some components of the immune system, which are to defend themselves against cancer cells (which always appear in our body) for yet still unknown reasons turn against us. The approach of collecting the patient’s own blood, isolating certain cells, and then manipulating these cells before reintroducing them back to the patient with the hope that the body itself will produce an immune response similar to an immunization protocol seems promising to me. As far as I understand patients who have undergone this particular treatment seem to have tolerated it well however, I am still not clear as to the overall success rate of the procedure. Hopefully, collectively we are able to come up with more answers.
Chemo therapy does not exclude the application of dendritic cell therapy as per Dr. Gorter however, 3 to 4 day interlopes between treatments have to be adhered to. When I asked Dr. Gorter whether his therapy has proven itself to be more beneficial then other therapies he responded by saying that there has never been a comparison study done. Most of the time people come to his clinic after they had chemotherapy but nothing seems to work for them anymore. He feels to have had very good results though it was not clear to me as to what this opinion was based on. I am hoping to be able to shed some light on this through further communication with Dr. Gorter. One more interesting comment: Through gene extraction of the cells he can determine for which kinds of chemotherapy agents the patient might be sensitive, hardly sensitive, and not sensitive therefore it is quite possible that the patient has cancer cells for chemotherapy agents which may or may not be approved for their application but may still be of benefit to him.
The treatment consist of a visit to his clinic. Blood will be collected and reintroduced seven days later. The cost is 2800 Euros per treatment (about $3300). This has to be repeated six times. Progress will be identified through scans, tumor markers and the overall clinical well being of the patient.
Personal telephone conversations with specific questions can be answered by him after consulting with his secretary. Dr. Gorter and his team will be moving into the University within two months where contact with him and his team can be handled more efficiently. Hopefully, I will be able to add more to this post in the near future.
Marion

Hi

I’m slightly confused about what Dr Gorter (based I believe at a clinic in Cologne (Germany) is doing compared with what the “Institute of Tumour Therapy” at Duderstadt (near Goettingen in Germany) is doing in the area of Dendritic Cell research and therapy.

The website:

http://www.dendritic.info/DCTreatmentCenters.html

states: “Europe – The Institute of Tumor Therapy in Duderstadt under the direction of Dr. Thomas Nesselhut in collaboration with Professor JH Peters of the U. of Gottingen in Germany have pioneered the clinical use of DC Therapy in cancer and has treated over 1000 patients to date”

I noticed That Dr Gorter was a co-author of the ASCO 2004 paper “Cancer therapy with unloaded monocyte-derived dendritic cells in patients with inoperable pancreatic and gall bladder cancer”, the lead author was Dr Nesselhut (Duderstadt). Suggests that Dr Gorter collaborates with the clinic at Duderstadt ?

The reason I’m raising this question is that I live in UK and a trip to Germany (for an initial consultation) would not be a big deal but I’m wondering which might be the best place to go, Cologne or Duderstadt.

By the way the ASCO 2004 paper describes DC treatment of 23 patients (17 with pancreatic, 6 with gallbladder) and quotes the following outcomes:

– clinical response in 5 pancreatic patients incl 2 stable disease, 2 minor remissions and 1 mixed response, with overall survival 4-32 months (I’m not sure that I understand this – does it mean that all 5 patients died within 32 months ?)

– clinical response in 1 gallbladder patient (stable disease after 18 months)

It would be interesting to find out what experience they have had since 2004. Perhaps this is a question which Marion could raise with Dr Gorter ?

Geoff