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To: The Ladies that are Participating in the U of Washington Vaccine Studies
I have some good news for all of the ladies that are participating in the University of Washingtion Vaccine Studies. You may recall that I have posted responses to my wife, Lisa's, progress in her 13 year battle with this awful disease.
Lisa was originally diagnosed in 1991 and had a recurrance 3 years ago. She has had surgery, radio frequency ablation, chemo of all types in the past three years. She had a complete response to a combination of Herceptin and Gemzar in 2002 and was NED until January, 2005. During that period she participated in the Washington vaccine study and received her final vaccine treatment (6th) on January 4, 2005.
On January 14th scans revealed that she had two small tumors growing in old scar tissue left from a tumor in her lung. At that time she had the top portion of her left lung removed. Samples of that tumor tissue were sent to University of Washington where special staining was done to evaluate whether or not the vaccine might be working on the tumors. Lisa had had a strong immune response from the vaccine up to that point.
Subsequently, we traveled to Italy where Lisa suffered a stroke on the last day of our trip. As a result of the stroke, MRI's found a 3mm brain tumor (not the cause of the stroke). She had gamma knife surgery at that point and we have been on a regimen of herceptin and gemzar ever since.
The good news is that a couple of weeks ago we received the reports of the results of the special stainings of Lisa's lung tissue done by the University of Washington. To our great glee it turns out that Lisa's tumors were invaded and attacked by two different types of T-cells. Further, (Lisa sent in a blood draw in May, 2005) despite the fact that she was taking the Gemzar she maintained a strong immune response from the vaccine.
To top it all off, we visited our oncologist today and learned that Lisa is once again NED! Her brain tumor is gone and her lower body scans are clean as a whistle.
As we begin our 14th year of cancer survival NED we are now very hopeful that the vaccine treatments from the University of Washington will be the source of a long term remission.
We hope that such will be the case for all of the participants of the studies and that this next step to cancer treatment will ultimately be available to everyone soon!
Much love and good luck to all! God Bless!
Brian and Lisa
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