A personalised vaccine against glioblastoma — the deadliest and most common form of brain cancer — has extended survival in a large international clinical trial, offering a potential turning point for patients who have had almost no new treatment options in nearly two decades. Results published in JAMA Oncology show that patients who received the vaccine, called DCVax, lived meaningfully longer than those who did not.
At a glance
- Glioblastoma vaccine: DCVax is an immunotherapy that combines proteins extracted from a patient’s own tumour with their white blood cells, training the immune system to recognise and attack the cancer.
- Survival benefit: Newly diagnosed patients who received DCVax survived an average of 19.3 months, compared with 16.5 months for the placebo group — and 13% lived at least five years, versus 5.7% in the control group.
- Clinical trial scale: The phase three trial enrolled 331 patients across multiple countries, with 232 receiving DCVax and 99 receiving a placebo, all after surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy.
What the numbers show
For people diagnosed with glioblastoma, the statistics have long been brutal. Average survival after diagnosis runs just 12 to 18 months, and some patients live far less than that. Against that backdrop, the DCVax results drew a sharp reaction from the trial’s senior investigators.
“The total results are astonishing,” said Prof. Keyoumars Ashkan, a neurosurgeon at King’s College Hospital in London who served as the European chief investigator. “The final results of this phase three trial offer fresh hope to patients battling with glioblastoma.”
The data show that 13% of patients who received DCVax lived at least five years after diagnosis. In the placebo group, only 5.7% reached that milestone. For people with recurrent glioblastoma — whose cancer had returned after initial treatment — those who received DCVax survived an average of 13.2 months, compared with 7.8 months for those who did not.
One patient in the trial lived more than eight years after receiving the vaccine. In the U.K., Nigel French, 53 at the time of publication, was still alive seven years after treatment.
How the vaccine works
DCVax is a form of personalised immunotherapy. Researchers extract proteins from a patient’s own tumour, then combine them with the patient’s white blood cells. That process, in effect, shows the immune system what the enemy looks like.
“When the vaccine is administered, these educated white blood cells then help the rest of the patient’s immune system recognise the tumour as something it needs to fight against and destroy,” Ashkan explained. “Almost like training a sniffer dog.”
The approach is significant because it is tailored to each individual’s tumour — no two patients receive identical treatment. That personalisation may also explain one of the trial’s more striking findings: DCVax appeared to benefit patients traditionally considered harder to treat, including older people and those for whom surgery was not possible.
A long gap, and what comes next
If regulators approve DCVax, it would be the first new treatment for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients in 17 years. The last was temozolomide chemotherapy, which became available in 2005 C.E. For patients with recurrent glioblastoma, the gap is even longer — 27 years without a new approved option.
Northwest Biotherapeutics, the U.S. company that makes DCVax, said it planned to seek regulatory approval. The vaccine is not yet available on the U.K.’s National Health Service. Dr. Karen Noble, director of research, policy, and innovation at the charity Brain Tumour Research, called for the treatment to become affordable and potentially part of standard care. “Patients who have been starved of new clinical options for too long needed to be able to access the treatment to prolong their lives,” she said.
Dr. Henry Stennett, research information manager at Cancer Research UK, highlighted the results for harder-to-treat patients as particularly meaningful. “While it still needs to pass stringent regulatory approval, it could be a big step forwards in beating this type of brain tumour,” he said.
The trial itself ran for eight years across multiple sites globally, with 20 of the 331 participants treated in the U.K. at King’s College Hospital or University College London Hospital. The results were published in JAMA Oncology in November 2022 C.E.
Reasons for care alongside reasons for hope
The trial’s results have genuine weight — phase three studies are the gold standard before regulatory review, and the survival improvements held across several subgroups. But important caveats remain. The absolute difference in median survival between the DCVax and placebo groups for newly diagnosed patients was 2.8 months — meaningful in a disease this aggressive, but not a cure. Longer-term follow-up and regulatory scrutiny will determine whether the five-year survival figures hold up in broader populations.
Glioblastoma remains one of oncology’s hardest problems. The U.S. National Cancer Institute notes that even with best available care, recurrence is nearly universal. DCVax, if approved, would extend options rather than eliminate the disease. The path from trial results to accessible treatment also involves cost, manufacturing complexity — since each dose is made from a patient’s own cells — and regulatory timelines that can stretch for years.
Still, for a patient population that has waited nearly three decades for a new option at recurrence, a phase three result showing doubled five-year survival rates is not a small thing. The full findings are available through the journal JAMA Oncology.
Read more
For more on this story, see: The Guardian
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Alzheimer’s risk cut in half by drug in landmark prevention trial
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- The Good News for Humankind archive on global health
About this article
- 🤖 This article is AI-generated, based on a framework created by Peter Schulte.
- 🌍 It aims to be inspirational but clear-eyed, accurate, and evidence-based, and grounded in care for the Earth, peace and belonging for all, and human evolution.
- 💬 Leave your notes and suggestions in the comments below — I will do my best to review and implement where appropriate.
- ✉️ One verified piece of good news, one insight from Antihero Project, every weekday morning. Subscribe free.
