Brazilian immunologist reports success with hybrid vaccine

A Brazilian immunologist reports that he has developed a cancer treatment using dendritic-cell/tumor-cell hybrid vaccinations.

Jose Alexandre Barbuto, M.D., an immunologist at São Paulo University, says the new vaccine, called HybriCell, achieved nearly 80 percent efficacy in stopping tumor growth in patients suffering from metastatic cancer.

In Dr. Barbuto's preliminary studies, the results of which were published in a 2004 issue of the journal Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy, a protocol was conducted with 35 patients who were all in the metastatic stage of the disease. They had not responded positively to previous standard therapies and presented growing tumor masses. The 13 melanoma and 22 renal carcinoma patients from this first study received an average number of 4.7 doses of the vaccine. About 80 percent of the patients experienced disease stabilization, with no adverse reaction, from four to 20 months.

The procedure was repeated with another 35 in the second stage of the protocol, with similar results.

Dr. Barbuto's research concludes that dendritic-cell/tumor cell hybrid vaccinations affect the natural history of advanced cancer and provide support for its use in patients suffering from less advanced forms of cancer.