Capital Health Cancer Center has announced that it has joined TVAX Biomedical, Inc.’s clinical trial to study a potential novel therapy for glioblastoma (GBM), the most common type of malignant brain cancer. Capital Health Cancer Center is one of five clinical sites open in the United States and currently the only East Coast location north of Florida to offer access to the TVAX trial.
There have been many trials over the past 20 years seeking to use the power of the immune system to attack GBM. None to date has proven effective. The investigational approach proposed by the TVAX protocol utilizes a patient’s own tumor cells to create a vaccine, which then is given to the patient to generate a specific immune response to their tumor. The laboratory collects, activates and expands these anti-tumor immune cells, which may lead to a more robust immune response when given back to the patient. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether or not this approach will overcome the natural tumor immune suppression of GBM and allow the immune system to kill remaining tumor cells.
