That’s what the University of Washington hopes will result from the innovative research they’re conducting for women with breast or ovarian cancer.

At UW Medicine, researchers are working hard to make a cancer vaccine a reality. If they succeed, they will give thousands of women with breast or ovarian cancer a better chance at surviving these deadly diseases.

An Urgent Need
Of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, 30 percent will develop a recurrence within five years; 80 percent of women treated for ovarian cancer relapse after the first treatment. In an effort to prevent cancer recurrence, the UW Tumor Vaccine Group, directed by Dr. Mary L. “Nora” Disis, associate professor of medicine in the UW Medicine Division of Oncology, is researching how to boost the immune system in cancer patients. Disis, who is also an associate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has had success with a cancer vaccine.

Several years ago Dr. Disis and her fellow researchers in the Tumor Vaccine Group began examining whether cancer patients could develop an immune response against their tumors. Disis and other tumor immunologists found that proteins in cancer tumors can stimulate immune responses. Today, the group is working on vaccines to immunize women with breast and ovarian cancer against relapses. This “immunotherapy” is designed to use immune system cells to fight cancer.

Hope for the Future
The research of the UW Tumor Vaccine Group to develop cancer vaccines is driven by the enormous past success of vaccines in preventing infectious disease. Since 1912, the incidence of polio, diphtheria, measles, rubella and whooping cough has decreased by nearly 100 percent as a direct result of vaccination programs. Unlike most vaccines for infectious disease, however, cancer vaccines attempt to induce cellular immune responses against tumor toxins to which the immune system has already been exposed. With their improved understanding of molecular and cellular characteristics, the UW Tumor Vaccine Group is able to target specific sets of cells during vaccination.

Vaccines are not used to treat infectious diseases once the disease has been acquired, but rather are used to prevent disease. Similarly, cancer vaccines may not be as effective for patients with existing malignancy; rather, vaccines may be most useful for patients whose cancer is in remission but who remain at high risk of relapse. Despite advances in surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, cancer patients may ultimately relapse because of residual microscopic disease. Therefore, the use of vaccines is an attractive strategy in the prevention of cancer relapse. The UW’s cancer vaccine program targets those patients whose disease has been optimally treated with standard therapies but who remain at risk for relapse.

To date, Disis and her team in the Tumor Vaccine Group have undertaken two clinical trials of a breast cancer vaccine , and will soon mount a clinical trial for an ovarian cancer vaccine.

Because UW Medicine combines the resources of Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center, and the UW School of Medicine, revolutionary science like cancer vaccine research can be brought quickly from the lab bench to the bedside. This way, leading-edge technology can be made available to the patients who need it.

More about the UW Medicine Tumor Vaccine Group and Nora Disis, MD

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