New vaccine trial for relapsed/refractory neuroblastoma in combination with metronomic chemotherapy

Allogeneic Tumor Cell Vaccination With Oral Metronomic Cytoxan in Patients With High-Risk Neuroblastoma (ATOMIC)

Researchers at Texas Children’s Hospital/Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine will begin accruing patients soon on a new phase I/II trial using an allogeneic neuroblastoma vaccine with low-dose chemotherapy. Drs Chrystal Louis and Malcom Brenner are the principal investigators. The trial will accrue 30 children up to age 21.

Eight injections of the vaccine will be given over 20 weeks, along with low-dose cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan). The vaccine is created from neuroblastoma cell lines modified to enhance immune response.

The rationale for adding low-dose cyclophosphamide is two-fold:

• a well-documented anti-angiogenesis effect in many tumors
• it decreases regulatory T-cells (or suppressor T-cells) which can suppress the immune system and aid tumor cells in “hiding.”

For more background on vaccine trials for neuroblastoma see prior article posted here.