Speak of the Devil....

...or an angel.

Here I am writing about lymphoma vaccines, and how they've seemed to hold so much promise, but just aren't working, and BOOM, there's a news story about lymphoma vaccines. It's a good one, too.

The American Society of Clininal Oncology (ASCO) is in the middle of their annual conference right now (see all the summaries/abstracts for the lymphoma-related research here), and one of the big success stories has been the presentation on the vaccine for follicular NHL. It was part of a mainstream, Associated Press news story on cancer vaccines.

Apparently, the fNHL vaccine is working. The ASCO presentation looked at 117 fNHL patients who had been in remission after chemo. The research showed that the group that didn't take the vaccine had an average of 30 months before the NHL returned. Those who had the vaccine took 44 months.

Now, an extra 14 months might not seem like a big deal, but given the results of previous vaccine studies, this is major, major good news. As the news story points out, "That's huge in this field, where progress is glacial and success with a new treatment is often measured in weeks or even days."

So, this vaccine isn't The Answer -- not yet. Again, from the news story: "It's way too soon to declare victory. No one knows how long the benefits will last, whether people will need "boosters" to keep their disease in check, or whether vaccines will ever be a cure. Many vaccines must be custom-made for each patient. How practical will that be, and what will it cost?"

But it seems like a major step on the way to making this particular treatment work. Think about what I wrote about last time, with other researchers seeming to have found out why vaccines aren't working. Imagine, in a few years, taking something that already works well, and improving it even more.

Pretty rare that follicular NHL makes it into a news story. I'm glad it was good news.