Another new clinical trial, led by Dr. Henderson is the TRIST (TroVax Renal Immunotherapy Survival Trial), an international, Phase III clinical trial of Oxford BioMedica’s therapeutic cancer vaccine, TroVax, in kidney (renal) cancer.
Dr. Henderson seeks to determine whether TroVax, a type of immunotherapy, when added to first line standard of care therapy, improves survival for patients with locally advanced or metastatic kidney cancer.
The Trovax vaccine stimulates the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells. It can be used to try to shrink or delay the progression of a cancer, or to reduce the risk of a cancer coming back after the primary tumor has been surgically removed.
“Kidney cancer is vascular,” Dr. Henderson said. “TroVax works by encouraging patients’ immune systems to launch a response against a protein that is found on the surface of solid cancers, including kidney cancers, but is not found on healthy cells. This immune response enables the body to identify and kill the cancer cells.”
Patients enrolled in the trial have standard treatments for advanced kidney cancer, which include Interferon Alpha, Aldesleukin, or Sunitinib. In addition, patients are randomized to have either TroVax or placebo injections 13 times over a year and three months (65 weeks).
TroVax has been used in clinical trials for other types of cancer. Researchers believe that giving TroVax alongside one of the standard treatments for kidney cell cancer may work better than standard treatment
