

Army researchers develop cancer vaccine that could cut recurrence rates - suprgeek
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/01/08/010812-news-cancer-vaccine/

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busyant
Here's the relevant data (bottom paragraph). Note that the results are not
"stat sig".
[http://investors.galenabiopharma.com/releasedetail.cfm?Relea...](http://investors.galenabiopharma.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=620971)

I'm surprised this story is being upvoted here. The original article seems
like a puff piece and cancer vaccines have quite a checkered history. Also,
Galena's press releases related to the vaccine seem a little scammy (e.g.,
"Galena Biopharma Announces Investigational New Drug Approval for Phase 2
Trial for NeuVax(TM) (E75 + GM-CSF) Combined With Herceptin(R)
(trastuzumab)"... The title is trying to play off of the phrase "new drug
approval" when in reality, they simply received approval to run the trial.

A total of 187 patients were enrolled in the combined trials (vaccine=108,
control=79). Patients enrolled in the trial were node positive or high-risk
node negative breast cancer patients with any level of HER2 expression (IHC
1+, 2+, or 3+), and rendered disease-free after standard adjuvant therapies.
With 60 months median follow-up, the vaccine group experienced a 10.6%
recurrence rate compared to 20.3% in the control group (48% risk reduction,
p=0.098). Recurrence rates for vaccine and control patients with different
disease features (nodal status, HER2 expression, tumor grade, and hormone
receptor status) were also analyzed.

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DanBC
Gerd Gigerenzer would suggest that this article contains too many percentages
for regular people to make sense of.

> _For women in a control group given no treatment, the rate of cancer
> recurrence was 20 percent,_

> _Peoples said. Among patients given the new drug, he said, “we cut that rate
> in half.”_

This is clearer than many papers would have reported, but people still risk
making a mistake here.

> _while Herceptin only works for about 20 percent of patients, E-75 worked
> for 60 percent._

People will get confused here. 20% of what? 60% of what?

It's much better to use real numbers.

> In a group of 10,000 women who've had breast cancer but who are not given
> further treatment approximately 2,000 will go on to get cancer again. In a
> group of 10,000 women who've had breast cancer but who are given E-75
> approximately 1,000 will go on to get cancer again.

~~~
polyfractal
Furthermore, I absolutely despise how most press/bloggers routinely neglect to
add citation data to articles. Without citation, this article means nothing.
They could be making up the results for all I know. Where is their primary
source? Nothing makes my blood boil quite like seeing unsupported scientific
articles.

This version of the article is more informative, but still lacking citations:
<http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/USDOD-24ab59>

Ahh, so we learn that this vaccine will called NeuVax and is being pursued as
a partnership between the military and Galena Biopharmaceuticals. Digging
around, we turn up this letter from 2008: [http://journals.lww.com/oncology-
times/Fulltext/2008/06250/B...](http://journals.lww.com/oncology-
times/Fulltext/2008/06250/Breast_Cancer__HER_2_neu_Peptide_Vaccine_Shown_to.20.aspx)

That article has some inline citations, but it was written while the primary
literature was still ePub'ed ahead of print.

So lets go to the clinical trial page for the new 2011 study:
<http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT01479244>

This gives us enough information to find the previous phase I trials:

<http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00841399>

<http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00854789>

Which lists major publications that came from the trials at the bottom.
Skimming through those, we can find this paper:

"Combined clinical trial results of a HER2/neu (E75) vaccine for the
prevention of recurrence in high-risk breast cancer patients: U.S. Military
Cancer Institute Clinical Trials Group Study I-01 and I-02."

Got it! There are other publications there, but this is the major
summarization of the phase I trials and a good overview. (EDIT: From busyant's
comment, it looks like the Phase II data is unpublished:
[http://investors.galenabiopharma.com/releasedetail.cfm?Relea...](http://investors.galenabiopharma.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=620971)).
This took maybe 15 minutes for me to find, and would have been easier if the
journalist had just asked the guy he was interviewing what paper to cite.

Basically, I'm saying this article sucked and most scientific journalists suck
even more. Quit being so damn sloppy and do your job.

~~~
tryitnow
This is why I read HN, the comments contain better journalism than the
articles posted.

------
panacea
Cancer isn't X, it's A-Z.

~~~
mfringel
...and so one of (the many) goal(s) of cancer research is to find out if all
of those letters come from the same alphabet.

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GiraffeNecktie
I hope the US military makes this drug available free of charge in Fallujah
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-
le...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-
assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html)

