The treatment demonstrated clinical benefit in all patient subsets with minimal reversible treatment-related adverse events. Subgroup analysis suggests that having prior local therapy resulted in greater PFS and OS.

This paper reviews the development of the combination of modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) to deliver the tumor-associated antigen 5T4 as a novel immunotherapeutic vaccine. The oncofetal antigen 5T4 is highly expressed in 80% of breast, kidney, colorectal, prostate and ovarian carcinomas, making it an ideal antigen for vaccine therapy. To date, more than 3000 doses of MVA-5T4 have been administered to colorectal, renal and prostate cancer patients, with rare occurrences of grade 3 or 4 vaccination-related adverse events being observed. Studies have demonstrated that MVA-5T4 is safe and highly immunogenic, both as monotherapy and in combination with other standard of care therapies. Although an immune response has been observed, antitumor activity has been modest or absent in clinical trials. A Phase III trial resulted in the development of an immune response surrogate that is to be applied to all future MVA-5T4 clinical trials. With minimal side effects and the ability to produce a strong immunogenic response, MVA-5T4 is a viable addition to the cancer therapy arsenal.

No abstract

Everolimus has significant clinical benefit and is well tolerated with reversible side effects as second- or third-line therapy for treating RCC. The next phase of research for everolimus is determining patient selection based on mTOR profile utilizing skills such as proteomics and genomics.

With approximately 240,890 new cases expected in 2011, prostate cancer remains the leading cause of non-melanoma cancer deaths in men. Immunotherapies using viral vector-based delivery systems targeting tumor-specific antigens are being studied. Viral vector-based delivery systems present tumor-targeted antigens (TAAs) to the immune system while breaking self-tolerance. Modified vaccinia ankara has been combined with the oncofetal antigen 5T4 to create TroVax for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The 5T4 antigen is highly expressed in a large number of carcinomas, including prostate cancer, but is rarely expressed in healthy tissue. TroVax has been demonstrated to be safe and highly immunogenic, both as monotherapy and in combination with other standard of care therapies in colorectal, renal cell, and prostate cancer. With minimal side effects and the ability to produce a strong immunogenic response, TroVax (MVA-5T4) is a viable addition to the treatment of prostate cancer.