Treatment for brain tumors includes surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. These therapies may be delivered alone or in combination. It is estimated that over 18,000 primary brain tumors occur in the United States each year. Of the those 18,000, over 60% are gliomas.   Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and most malignant of all gliomas with 75% of patients dying within 18 months of diagnosis  since they cannot be cured by surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or any other available treatment modality. The use of allogeneic/syngeneic/and xenogeneic cell lines and lysis may lead to a reduction in tumor size and perhaps rejection thereby increasing survival. In the future, allogeneic cell lines may also be used as a vaccination from common cancers. The manipulation of the immune system may be a useful way to have the body itself contribute to the treatment and prevention of cancer. Our research focuses on increasing the efficiency of the immune system to recognise and reject the malignant cells.

The results of our original animal experiments are very encouraging and we are expecting to have a clinical trial as soon as they are completed.

Dr. Stathopoulos and his research team are one of the first groups in the world to be preparing an allogeneic vaccine for GBM. For more info, please go to ERC (Epitopoietic Research Corporation)

Allogeneic vaccines: Allogeneic (pronounced "al-oh-jen-ay-ick") means "coming from another." These vaccines use cells of a particular cancer type that originally came from someone other than you.

Allogeneic vaccines are easier to make than autologous vaccines -- they are more like off-the-shelf drugs than a vaccine made specifically for one person. The cells for the vaccine are grown in the lab from a stock of cancer cells kept for that purpose. Some allogeneic tumor vaccines use a mixture of cells, originally removed from several patients. The cells are treated and are usually injected along with one or more adjuvant substances to stimulate the immune system.

While the FDA has not yet approved any tumor cell vaccines for general use, they are being studied in clinical trials against several types of cancer including: melanoma, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia.

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