Local Research By USA Health Published Nationally

USA Health research demonstrating that a vaccine made from patients’ own tumors could extend the lives of women with late-stage ovarian cancer, particularly those without a BRCA gene mutation, has been published in the December 2020 issue of The Lancet Oncology. The work was originally presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology in March. The phase-2 clinical trial involved 91 women with stage-3 and -4 ovarian cancer who had completed primary chemotherapy and were randomized to a Vigil vaccine or a placebo. The Vigil vaccine is a genetically engineered vaccine made from cancer cells acquired from patients during surgery. Researchers found that the vaccine improved survival with low toxicity. Patients who received the Vigil vaccine experienced an extended cancer-free survival from 8.4 months for the control group to 12.6 months. When stratifying patients for BRCA gene mutations, patients without a BRCA gene mutation who received the vaccine demonstrated enhanced efficacy for both cancer-free survival (19.4 months versus 14.8 months) and overall survival.