Immunotherapy:
Health Story

Aired on Superstation WGN
Saturday, May 28 and September 17, 2005
Show 214

When George Vail received radiation treatment for his prostrate cancer, he decided instead to try a trial cancer vaccine which utilized immunotherapy. He had six vaccines over six months. "Cancer spreads like an infection in the body, so why couldn't we use the immune system to arrest it?" asks Dr. Jedd Wolchock in Clinical Immunology Service at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Immunotherapy was discovered in England in the 1890s and was used historically to treat allergies, bee stings and snake bites. In immunotherapy, the patient's own cells are grown in a lab and re-injected in the body. Stewart Lavey is a skin cancer survivor who also participated in a study on a cancer vaccine after his melanoma was removed. "Because of the size of my melanoma, there was a danger that the cancer would return. I had no side affects from the vaccine and went about my daily life," says Stewart. "The vaccine has helped provide me with the opportunity to be around for my grandchildren," says George. More vaccines for cancer are currently in the making.