The first patients have begun enrolling in a new clinical trial at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center testing the effectiveness of the cancer vaccine. The trial will involve 700 patients at some 90 centers worldwide.

Current treatments for advanced lung cancer have limited effectiveness and new therapies are needed, said Lyudmila Bazhenova, M.D., director of the Lung Cancer Unit at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center and assistant clinical professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

"The future treatments for advanced lung cancer may involve combinations of chemotherapy and targeted agents, and possibly even biologicals such as this," she said.

Roughly 430 patients die of lung cancer every day in the United States, according to Bazhenova, making it the nation's number one killer, despite being the second most common cancer. "While breast cancer mortality has declined about 15 percent, there hasn't been much improvement in mortality in lung cancer in the past several decades," she said. According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 215,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed, and 162,000 individuals will die from the disease this year in the United States.

The vaccine, developed by NovaRx, a biopharmaceutical company based in San Diego, consists of lung cancer cells that have been genetically altered to shut down the cancer's ability to depress the immune system. In addition, the cells are also modified to enable the immune system to see them better.

Bazhenova explained that earlier tests of the vaccine's effectiveness produced encouraging results. The current trial is for patients with stage four non-small cell lung cancer who have completed four to six cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy. Those patients who have had a response to the treatment, meaning either tumor shrinkage or stable disease, may be eligible. The trial is a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, where neither patients nor doctors know who is getting the vaccine and who may be receiving a placebo. Patients receive injections once a month for 18 months, after which they receive two quarterly injections and are treated until disease progression. The trial's main goal is to determine if the vaccine can improve patient survival compared to taking placebo.

The Moores UCSD Cancer Center is one of the nation's 41 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, combining research, clinical care and community outreach to advance the prevention, treatment and cure of cancer.

About Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, among both men and women. It claims more lives each year than colon cancer, prostate cancer, lymph and breast cancers combined.

Yet most lung cancer deaths could be prevented. That's because smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of lung cancer cases. Your risk of lung cancer increases with the length of time and number of cigarettes you smoke. If you quit smoking, even after smoking for many years, you can significantly reduce your chances of developing lung cancer. Protecting yourself from other risk factors for lung cancer, such as exposure to asbestos, radon and secondhand smoke, also decreases your risk.   

About Cancer

Cancer (medical term: malignant neoplasm) is the general name for a group of more than 100 diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, do not invade or metastasize. Most cancers form a tumor but some, like leukemia, do not. The branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer is oncology.

Cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. Most cancers are named for the organ or type of cell in which they start - for example, cancer that begins in the colon is called colon cancer; cancer that begins in basal cells of the skin is called basal cell carcinoma.

Today, millions of people are living with cancer or have had cancer. The risk of developing most types of cancer can be reduced by changes in a person's lifestyle, for example, by quitting smoking, limiting time in the sun, being physically active, and eating a better diet. Half of all men and one-third of all women in the US will develop cancer during their lifetimes.