Vaccine Reduces Recurrence, Death in Patient with HER2 Breast Cancer
1. Reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
A. Vaccination with a human epidermal growth factor receptor 2/neu peptide vaccine increased immunogenicity, decreased breast cancer recurrance, and reduced mortality 50% after a median of 3 years of treatement in node-positive and node-negative breast cancer patients with all degrees of HER2/neu expression.
B. Women with low expressing HER2/neu tumors derived the greatest benefit from the vaccine.
C. At 36 months of follow up, the recurrence rate for both low and overexpressers of HER2/neu in the control arm was 18%. In the vaccinated group, the recurrence rate was 14% for overexpressers and 11% for low expressers.
D. The absolute mortality rate for control overexpressers was 9%, compared to 3% for overexpressers who were vaccinated.
E. In the contro low-expressers the mortality was 7%,compared to 0% in the vaccinated group of low-expressers.
F. The women were vaccinated 6 times over a 6 month period and then boosters were given , as needed, every 6-12 months.