A glimmer of promise against a wily target

Despite its dramatic success for certain patients, oncology’s immunotherapy revolution has offered little benefit for many tumor types, perhaps none less so than glioblastoma, a cancer of the brain.

But a pair of clinical trials mark a small but rare — and therefore notable — step forward in the disease. As STAT’s Andrew Joseph reports, scientists developed personalized cancer vaccines for glioblastoma, hoping to stoke an immune response that might shrink tumors. None of the patients saw the course of their disease change, but there were signs that the immune system took notice of the malignancies.

“These two studies provide proof of concept that using this type of personalized vaccine, we can induce an immunological response,” said Dr. Neeha Zaidi, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, who was not involved in the research. “The challenge is, how do we get a clinical response?”

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