Cancer
The introduction of Gardasil, the first vaccine against cervical cancer, has raised the question of when we can expect vaccines against other cancers. The answer: sooner than we may think. This year, progress was made on two cancer vaccines that are used not to prevent the disease but to help people who already have it. Working with melanoma, Dr. Douglas Schwartzentruber, of the Goshen Center for Cancer Care in Goshen, Ind., gave patients a vaccine made up of 20 proteins specific to the disease and a dose of interleukin-2, an immune-system stimulator. The therapy caused tumors to regress in 22% of people who received it. Dr. Larry Kwak of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston took a similar approach against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, using proteins made from the patients' cells, plus an immune booster. This led to a 47% increase in disease-free survival time. Neither approach eliminates the need for surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, but both enlist the body's own immune system in the fight against the disease.