New Vaccine Trial Using Mushroom Tea & Peptide/Herceptin

[KDR]

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01922921?term=lupe+salazar&rank=2

Protocol 135, Tumor Vaccine Group (Seattle, Washington)

For those who may qualify and be interested. Should open within a month.

Karen

[StephN]

Thanks Karen -
Maybe I should have waited for THIS vaccine trial!

You need to be:

Patients with stage IV HER2+ breast cancer treated to:
No evidence of disease (NED), or
Stable bone only disease after definitive therapy
HER2 overexpression by immunohistochemistry (IHC) of 2+ or 3+ in the primary tumor or metastasis; or documented gene amplification by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis; IHC =< 2+ must have HER2 gene amplification documented by FISH
Patients must continue trastuzumab monotherapy dosing per standard of care through the

[Debbie L.]

This is interesting. They are not testing the vaccine, they are testing the mushroom extract, Polysaccharide-K (PSK). It is apparently the biggest-selling cancer med in Japan, and has its roots in traditional Chinese medicine. Like I said, that a mainstream vaccine-focused group is testing this is intriguing.

Here are a few links to info about PSK:

Komen/PSK (http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/PolysaccharideKPSK.html)

Wikipedia PSK (http://her2support.org/vbulletin/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysaccharide-K)

Google will find lots of other references, although most are rather old. It seems this ancient treatment is taking a long time to come to the attention of modern medicine.

Although it looks like the drug has a trade name, at least in Japan, there is no drug company sponsor of the trial. Sponsors are the UofW, NCI, and NCCAM.

Debbie Laxague

[KsGal]

That is interesting. Thank you for sharing with us. I hadn't heard of PSK before.

[waterdreamer]

To be eligible for this trial, you also need to be HLA-A2 positive, and they will test you beforehand to see if you qualify.

[StephN]

There was an earlier trial (maybe 8 or more years ago) that had that HLA-A2 requirement. I was tested, but was not A2. Seems the test took a few days to come back, but may be faster now with new methods.

That earlier trial had nothing to do with this mushroom tea, but perhaps some information was gleaned from that earlier trial that pointed toward the A2 requirement. Indeed, interesting.

[waterdreamer]

I was eligible for this trial, but alas I am not HLA-A2 positive. The test was sent to an outside lab and took almost 2 weeks to get the results. So now I am keeping my eyes open for other vaccine trials. I had brain mets a year ago, so I am not eligible for the U of Penn trial as they require brain mets to be clear for 4 years. I am currently just doing Herceptin.

[laura4252]

Paul Stamets started a company called Fungi Perfecti. They sell medicinal mushrooms which have shown to have anti-tumor properties. His account of his mothers breast cancer is quite moving and you can find his story on Youtube. Mycelium Running is the title of his book. Turkey tail mushroom is the one that NIH studied. Healing with plants.