The patients were vaccinated over five years. Based on these promising results, NCI plans to carry out a large-scale lymphoma vaccine study in the near future.
Lymphoma is a general term for cancers that develop in the body's lymphatic system.
The lymphatic system is part of the immune system, which helps the body fight disease and infection. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is the fifth most common cancer in the United States. The NCI study involved 20 patients who were newly diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. All of them had small tumors or their tumors were decreasing in size following chemotherapy. The mixture was then used to create a vaccine that triggers the body's immune system to recognize and destroy tumor cells.