Immunization of melanoma patients with BEC2 anti-idiotypic monoclonal antibody that mimics GD3 ganglioside: enhanced immunogenicity when combined with adjuvant.

摘要: Previous attempts to immunize melanoma patients against GD3 ganglioside have been unsuccessful because of the poor immunogenicity GD3. BEC2, an anti-idiotypic monoclonal antibody that mimics GD3, can induce anti-GD3 IgG in rabbits. Since clinical trials with BEC2 demonstrated alone is not highly immunogenic, we carried out sequential exploring use two immunological adjuvants, BCG and QS21, administered BEC2. Melanoma free disease after surgical resection but at high risk for recurrence were immunized either BEC2/BCG (14 patients) or BEC2/QS21 (6 patients). All developed high-titer antibodies demonstrating both adjuvants effectively enhanced Anti-GD3 induced 3 14 BEC2/BCG; no patient detectable antibodies. After a median follow-up 2.4 years, 71% remain alive 64% are disease. In BEC2/BCG, apparent association was observed between class II HLA type development survival. We encouraged by results which suggest further enhancement immune response will result more frequent responses among patients.