Conditions: Cancer
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 11
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
This research study is for people who have previously received cancer vaccines. The investigators are testing a form of therapy known as interferon alfa-2a, which is commercially available as the drug Roferon®-A, to see if it can be used to help boost the effects of the cancer vaccine and help the immune system attack the cancer.

It is believed that the body's immune system can attack tumor cells and kill them. This is thought to be due to immune cells called T cells which can recognize special proteins on the surface of tumors as a signal to fight the cancer. However, the vaccine may not work very well if the protein signal is too weak for the T cells to find your tumors. The investigators think that interferon alfa-2a can signal the cancer cells in the body to make more proteins that may allow the T cells to recognize and kill the cancer cells better.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: Starting within 6 months after completion of the dendritic cell vaccine, a dose of interferon alfa-2a will be administered subcutaneously in the skin of the arm, thigh or abdomen every other day for a total of 6 injections.

Interventions: intervention 1: Interferon Alfa-2a
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None

Protocol document: