New Therapy Enlists Immune System to Boost Cure Rate in a Childh...( --In a First Immunotherapy Works Agai...),Health

--In a First, Immunotherapy Works Against Neuroblastoma--

PHILADELPHIA, May 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A multicenter research team has announced encouraging results for an experimental therapy using elements of the body's immune system to improve cure rates for children with neuroblastoma, a challenging cancer of the nervous system.

John M. Maris, M.D., chief of Oncology at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, co-authored the phase 3 clinical trial, which was led by Alice Yu, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego. Maris chairs the committee supervising the trial for the Children's Oncology Group, a cooperative organization that pools resources from leading medical centers to study and devise new treatments for pediatric cancers.

Neuroblastoma, a cancer of the peripheral nervous system, usually appears as a solid tumor in the chest or abdomen. Neuroblastoma accounts for 7 percent of all childhood cancers, but due to its often aggressive nature, causes 15 percent of all childhood cancer deaths.

Yu will present the neuroblastoma study results on June 2 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Orlando, Fla. In advance of the meeting, ASCO published the findings online on May 14.

Maris explained that immunotherapy for cancer involves triggering the body's immune system to attack cancer cells. Monoclonal antibodies are molecules customized to target particular cancers, while cytokines are naturally occurring signaling proteins that regulate the body's immune responses.

In the current study, Children's Oncology Group researchers studied 226 children with high-risk neuroblastoma. Half received the immunotherapy, while half received standard therapy (chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation). The patients who received the immunotherapy were 20 percent more likely than those in the standard ther
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