Tetanus Vaccine boosts Cancer Vaccine In fighting Brain Tumor

In a small trial involving 12 patients, researchers recently used the tetanus vaccine to “prime” the immune systems of patients with brain tumors. Then they administered immunotherapy using a new kind of cellular cancer vaccine that trains the immune system to fight the tumor without affecting nearby healthy cells. Using this one-two punch of a highly effective traditional vaccine and an innovative cancer vaccine, patients with glioblastoma, lived from 4 to 8 more years after their treatment, compared to 11 more months in the patients who received the immunotherapy with a placebo injection instead of the tetanus booster. One patient is still alive eight years later. Although the trial is small, the dramatic difference in additional survival time among those who first received the tetanus vaccine implies the strategy worked.
The use of dendritic cell vaccines is not new to cancer immunotherapy. A great deal of research, especially with advanced melanoma, has shown their effectiveness in killing cancer cells when trained what to target. But using dendritic cells to target an actual virus instead of cellular mutations is new. By targeting cytomegalovirus, present only in the tumor cells, healthy cells don’t get caught in the crossfire. Using the tetanus vaccine like a warning siren to increase the dendritic cells’ success is new as well and might have applications well beyond glioblastoma treatment.
“It certainly has implications to be brought into other very aggressive cancers where you have cancer-specific targets because tetanus is so good at creating an inflammatory response and waking up the immune system.”