HealthThe Spanish tuberculosis vaccine, effective as immunotherapy against BCG-resistant bladder tumors

The Spanish tuberculosis vaccine, effective as immunotherapy against BCG-resistant bladder tumors

File – Microbiologist. – GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO / REPTILE8488 – File

CIBER researchers belonging to the areas of Respiratory Diseases (CIBERES, Carlos Martín group) and Infectious Diseases (CIBERIFEC) have carried out a collaborative study demonstrating the therapeutic effect of the MTBVAC vaccine against bladder cancer resistant to BCG (current tuberculosis vaccine ).

The live attenuated tuberculosis vaccine MTBVAC, built at the University of Zaragoza and developed by the Galician company Biofabri belonging to the Zendal group, and which is expected to begin phase III efficacy studies in babies in South Africa soon, could have applications to treat diseases beyond tuberculosis.

This is the case of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer resistant to the current treatment with the BCG vaccine, a disease against which the University of Zaragoza researcher Nacho Aguiló and his group have shown in an experimental model in mice that MTBVAC is highly efficient , as can be deduced from the results of the research published in the prestigious Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.

Bladder cancer represents the fifth most frequent type of cancer in developed countries, with an incidence three times higher in men than in women. In the case of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, this represents around 70% of bladder cancer cases, and many of these patients are currently treated by successive intravesical applications of the current tuberculosis vaccine, the BCG, whose mechanism consists of stimulating the immune system against the tumor.

This treatment has been administered with hardly any changes since the end of the 1970s, when the Colombian doctor living in Canada, Álvaro Morales, successfully tested BCG for the first time in patients with bladder cancer, being the first immunotherapy against cancer approved by the US drug agency, the FDA, in 1990. However, although BCG remains the treatment of choice for high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder tumors, one of the main problems with this therapy is that there are a number A significant number of patients who do not respond to treatment are called BCG-resistant patients.

In this case, the possibilities of treating these patients are very limited, and in most cases the only effective alternative is direct removal of the bladder (cystectomy), a major surgical procedure that seriously affects the quality of life of patients. patients. Therefore, the development of effective therapies for the treatment of patients refractory to BCG is a priority in the field of urology.

The study, published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, shows that MTBVAC could be a plausible alternative for the treatment of BCG-resistant bladder cancer. The results showed complete removal of tumors in more than 60% of the MTBVAC-treated mice, while tumors were not rejected in any of the BCG-treated animals. When a combination therapy of MTBVAC was applied together with monoclonal antibodies directed at blocking the pro-tumor molecule PD-L1 (which is one of the main types of immunotherapy currently used against cancer), it resulted in a 100% survival rate. the animals to which the double therapy was administered.

In addition, no adverse effects were observed in any of the treated animals, and the fact that MTBVAC is a vaccine whose safety has been studied in humans, and that it is produced at an industrial level by the Biofabri company, would represent a great advantage for its possible application in the clinic, so it would be a priority to try to accelerate clinical studies in patients in whom BCG treatment has failed.

Source: Infosalus

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