Breast Cancer Study Shows Promise

Col. (Dr.) George Peoples, Brooke Army Medical Center surgeon and principal investigator for a six-year breast cancer vaccination study, released the results of the study Dec. 14 at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Out of the 186 patients in the study, the recurrence rate as of last month was 16 percent in the control group and 8 percent for the vaccinated group — a 50 percent reduction in recurrence. The vaccine targets HER2/neu, a protein that plays a role in cell growth. In larger amounts, the protein accelerates tumor growth, which can lead to a poorer prognosis for women with breast cancer. If the Food and Drug Administration agrees with Doctor Peoples, the next step will be Phase 3 testing, which will include multiple sites and a much larger pool of participants. That phase would be conducted by a commercial company called Apthera.