Neuvax or Other Vaccine Trials

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I'm sure that there has been a thread on this before, but I thought I'd try to start a new one.  Is anybody participating or considering participating in the Neuvax clinical trial?  What are your thoughts?  What has your experience been?  Likewise, if you are participating in or considering another vaccine, what are your thoughts?

I think I'm going for the Neuvax vaccine, provided that I qualify.  Otherwise, I might try to get into the other one - I think its AE37 or something like that?  I know that Neuvax is being tested on a very specific subset of patients as a result of seeing a better outcome on those patients during the Phase II study.  This seems a bit questionable, but this is also the nature of breast cancer. 

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

  • shelleydodt
    shelleydodt Member Posts: 78
    edited March 2013

    I participated in one at the University of Pennsylvania by Dr. Brian Czerniecki. Dr. People's and Dr. Mittendorf have had good results with the AE37 and neuvax. There are other trials as well, check out bctrials.org.

    They are starting a new one at Penn in April for newly diagnosed  invasive women to get a vaccine along with trastuzumab and also for women who have completed chemo and still have residual breast tumor.

    One thing about the later phase trials is that you might get in the placebo group. But ASK, if you should advance while on the vaccine, if they will PUT YOU INTO the vaccine group. They do this in some trials.

    Good luck, email me if you want sdodt@me.com   website is www.shelleydodt.com

  • fd1
    fd1 Member Posts: 239
    edited March 2013

    Thanks for your reply!  What do you mean about advancing while on the vaccine?  I've already had surgery, chemo, radiation, and I have been on Tamoxifen for approximately six months.  This would be an adjuvant therapy for me...

    Anyone else out there have any input?

  • SpecialK
    SpecialK Member Posts: 16,486
    edited March 2013

    What the previous poster meant was that you could recur while enrolled in the trial.  I did this trial (the AE37/GP2) but I am Her2+.  My understanding is that they are now enrolling people who express Her2 at lower levels, but you must express it at more than 1+ to be enrolled.  Enrollment must occur within 6 months of ending active treatment.  Are you willing to travel to a trial site?  I flew from Florida to Washington, D.C. every three weeks for 6 months to do this.

    http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00524277

  • fd1
    fd1 Member Posts: 239
    edited March 2013

    My Her2 was +2 for the ICH test (borderline) but my FISH test came back negative at 1.0.  I wasn't aware that the vaccine could be beneficial after a recurrence. 

    I was planning on traveling to Toronto or Boston for the Neuvax vaccine but thankfully they have opened a test site very close to me, so that won't be necesssary.

  • SpecialK
    SpecialK Member Posts: 16,486
    edited March 2013

    rc1 - what I said was that you could recur during enrollment in the vaccine trial, not that it was beneficial after a recurrance.  These trials are specifically for prevention of recurrence after standard primary treatment.  Residual or persistent breast cancer would exclude you from participation, and you must be declared NED to enroll.  The Neuvax trial is similar to the AE37/GP2 trial, but I believe it was originated for low expressors of Her2 where the AE37/GP2 was originally designed for those who are considered Her2+.  This trial was more recently opened to include those who express Her2 at lower levels.

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