The Olivia Hendrickx Research Fund is developing a new treatment, immunotherapy, for patients with a particular type of malignant brain tumour, malignant glioma.
Unfortunately, this tumour occurs relatively frequently in children. In adults, this tumour is actually the most frequently occurring brain tumour. Each year this tumour is found in approximately 4 adults in 100,000.
The personal and social consequences of this tumour are particularly severe.
The life of the patient changes very abruptly. Not only is there the intensive treatment (neurosurgery, radiotherapy combined with and followed by chemotherapy) but the patient usually also needs help due to neurological problems.
The chances of recovery are in fact non-existent, because the tumour always cones back.

How does immunotherapy work?
Prof Dr Stefaan Van Gool leads the application of developments of immunotherapy at the K.U.Leuven.
Immunotherapy stimulates the defence system against the tumour and thus tries to obtain control over its uncontrolled growth.
The vaccine is made from on the one hand the patient’s tumour and on the other hand from the white blood cells. In other words, vaccines are made individually for each patient. First the tumour is removed to the greatest possible extent via an operation.
After the procedure, in which the diagnosis is established from the tissue, the patient is given a treatment known as leukapheresis in which a large number of white blood cells are collected. Then the vaccine is prepared and given to the patient via injections.

Professor Van Gool began using this innovative treatment in a study into patients with a recurrence of a malignant glioma, i.e. in patients who by this point had already all been given standard treatments and for whom the future was beyond help in the short term. Since he started, he has already treated more than 150 patients in this manner.
Some of the patients are still alive and tumour-free now, following the administration of the vaccine. Proof that the vaccine works!
In the strategy to improve the efficacy of the vaccination therapy gradually, the administration schedule has been reconfigured. After our first experiences were published in two medical scientific journals in 2004, the experiences with the first three groups of patients were published in 2008.
In the fourth group of patients, extra stimulation of the cells was built into the vaccination strategy, and an improvement in the disease-free survival curve can already be seen.

For a few years now, the vaccine has also been used in combination with the standard treatments, in patients who have just been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour.
After the procedure, in which the diagnosis is made from the tissue, the patient is given the treatment known as leukapheresis. Then, radiochemotherapy is administered for several weeks. Next, the patient is given 4 weekly vaccinations. Finally, the patient is given maintenance chemotherapy of 5 days medication out of each 28 days, with a vaccination on day 8. So it is a fairly complex treatment, in which the neurosurgeon, radiotherapists and medical oncologists in the various different hospitals and the immunotherapists at Leuven University Hospital have to work together in a very streamlined way around a patient.
This treatment protocol has been improved over time, and we see clearly which profile of patients has an improved survival rate after administration of the vaccine.
The obligatory next step in the scientific development and implementation as standard treatment in the healthcare system is a double blind randomised clinical study, in which half of the patients are given the vaccine as described above. The patients who do not get the vaccine (the control group) will however still be able to try the vaccine after 6 months of maintenance chemotherapy, in order that in the end all patients obtain the 4 treatment modes, being neurosurgery, radiochemotherapy, chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

Through the good cooperation between the other university and non-university oncological centres and Leuven University Hospital, it is possible to implement the tumour vaccination as a treatment, so that all patients should be able to obtain access to this innovative treatment, regardless of where they are being treated.
Immunotherapy also for other tumours.

Immunotherapy can also be used for other tumours.
This technique has recently been approved by the ethics committee so that it can be used in patients with a specific form of uterine cancer. The first experimental applications started in the course of 2010, and a few patients have already been included in this study.
The protocol for the additional treatment in patients with high-risk renal cell cancer after operation is being submitted to the ethics committee in the autumn of 2010, and we also hope to be able to start soon with the treatment of patients with renal cell cancer.
Finally, the preparations for a treatment protocol for patients with pancreatic cancer are going well. This tumour is one that is very difficult to treat, and the protocol must therefore be drawn up with prudence.