A novel vaccine that stimulates the body’s immune response has been effective in shrinking tumors in patients with low-grade, B-cell lymphoma. Two patients enrolled in a clinical trial at The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai Health System experienced partial remissions of their disease within six months after completing treatment.

Unlike a standard vaccine that is produced in a manufacturing facility, this new vaccine is actually produced in each patient. Two immune-modifying medicines are administered directly into a tumor, combined with two days of localized, low-dose radiotherapy to the same tumor. The first medicine mobilizes special immune cells, or dendritic cells, to the tumor, where they sample pieces of dying tumor cells after radiotherapy. The second medication activates the tumor-loaded dendritic cells, which then teach the rest of the immune system to recognize and eliminate tumor cells throughout the body.

Standard treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation enable patients to live with low-grade, B-cell lymphoma, but do not cure the disease, says Joshua Brody, MD, Director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is the first researcher to use the new dendritic cell mobilizing medicine as a treatment for lymphoma.

“We have helped a lot of people, but this new treatment provides us with the potential for a greater future,” says Dr. Brody. “It teaches the patient’s immune system to kill the lymphoma. Our patients find this especially exciting because—in some sense—they are actively creating their own anticancer therapy, as opposed to just passively receiving a therapy, as with standard treatments.”

The trial is being funded by a $750,000 Clinical Investigator Award Dr. Brody received from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. A total of 30 patients will be enrolled in the clinical trial. This summer, Dr. Brody will begin presenting the preliminary trial data at lymphoma conferences in the United States.

Sergei German, a patient who is currently enrolled in the trial, says, “The treatment Dr. Brody has conceived and the trial he is running at Mount Sinai is probably the best option for lymphoma patients nowadays. It offers the opportunity to treat lymphoma using immunotherapy without resorting to harsh chemotherapy.”

Mr. German reports that the treatment’s side effects have been very mild, similar to the results of a flu vaccine for which he would take a pain reliever such as acetaminophen.

Says Steven J. Burakoff, MD, Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute, and the Lillian and Henry M. Stratton Professor of Cancer Medicine: “The Tisch Cancer Institute has a robust clinical trials portfolio, and we fully support the development of clinical trials that involve the use of novel vaccines such as the one Dr. Brody is developing to treat B-cell lymphoma.”