Immune therapies finally working against cancer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090531/ap_on_he_me/us_med_cancer_vaccines

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, Ap Medical Writer – Sun May 31, 12:19 pm ET

ORLANDO, Fla. – First there was surgery, then chemotherapy and radiation. Now, doctors have overcome 30 years of false starts and found success with a fourth way to fight cancer: using the body's natural defender, the immune system.

The approach is called a cancer vaccine, although it treats the disease rather than prevents it.

At a cancer conference Sunday, researchers said one such vaccine kept a common form of lymphoma from worsening for more than a year. That's huge in this field, where progress is glacial and success with a new treatment is often measured in weeks or even days.

Experimental vaccines against three other cancers — prostate, the deadly skin disease melanoma and an often fatal childhood tumor called neuroblastoma — also gave positive results in late-stage testing in recent weeks, after decades of struggles in the lab.

"I don't know what we did differently to make the breakthrough," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society.

Instead of a single "A-Ha!" moment, there have been many "ah, so" discoveries about the immune system that now seem to be paying off, said Dr. John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute