That is called politics. I just posted about it on the Dr Susan J Love facebook page about this yesterday, let me repost:
The sad things are that immunotherapy researchers have been working without a lot of professional support for the past thirty years, even as now they are suddenly in the spotlight and it might be the way out of this dreadful disease.
What is worse is to know that there are breast cancer vaccines that are shelf-stable, with proven safety profiles that have been studied for years in patients, with efficacy rates including up to 40% durable responses -- and yet the powers-that-be require that additional studies be conducted.
Someone else decided that the end-game is to develop a breast cancer vaccine that could be given to the larger population against developing breast cancer and yet meanwhile, patients who are able to get their disease burden low may still progress and die because 40% against one breast cancer type isn't enough in someone else's book.
Tell me a single woman with breast cancer who wouldn't rather take a 40% chance than do nothing, the current standard of care.
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Breast cancer immunotherapy works best when:
The tumor burden is low, so NED or stable bone mets
If the cancer is active the immune system is pre-occupied by the cancer which confounds your immune system.
They can teach through the vaccines to have your body overcome cancer's immunological evasiveness, so one's body will be able to attack mutant cells should they start to form again. But to teach it things have to be quieter in the patient's body.
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"New breast cancer vaccine ‘promising but not ready for prime time'."
No, it’s plenty ready.
https://t.co/WEl7nYVfIV
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This is about Carter's treatment not specifically breast cancer vaccines but it is a great overview about cancer immunotherapy in general.
http://www.onclive.com/web-exclusive...rapy-in-cancer