Re: Vaccine Treatment for Brain Tumours

[Guest guest]

Jill,

Sorry I took so long to respond to this.

Presently, the one vaccine Dr. Goldberg has a problem with giving our kids

is the chicken pox vaccine. He prefers to wait and see if they get chicken

pox, then treat aggressively with antiviral meds if they do. In fact, since

many (most?) of the kids he sees are already on antiviral,

theoretically they are probably somewhat protected. If they reach puberty

without having had chicken pox, he would consider the vaccine then, as it

can cause other problems if they contract chicken pox when they¹re older (I

know it can cause infertility in boys... not sure what the problem is with

girls, although I¹m sure it would be a bad thing to have during pregnancy).

Anyway, the idea is to postpone the exposure to this virus for as long as

possible. Remember that our kids classically have a problem handling herpes

viruses due to their dysfunctional immune systems. They may not even have

the proper immune response to the vaccine, and in fact, dealing with the

antibodies created due to the vaccine may be a problem for them.

So, in thinking along those lines, my guess is that he would be hesitant to

vaccinate against another herpes virus. That¹s just my guess, though.

The vaccine does sound like an amazing breakthrough... I wish that it had

been available for your father.

Caroline

From: Jill Boyer <sjillboyer@...>

Reply-< >

Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 14:31:41 -0700 (PDT)

nids <nids >

Subject: Vaccine Treatment for Brain Tumours

Hello All,

Again, I was reading the Economist and they have an article regarding a

crude vaccine they created to kill a cytomegalovirus in patients with

glioblastomas. It caught my eye since my poor father died of a nasty

glioblastoma brain tumor eleven years ago. This is a really nasty brain

tumor and most patients are lucky to live two years once diagnosed

(actually, even one year for that matter). According to the article, this

virus is found inactive in about 80 percent of the population. However, they

discovered that this virus is active in the actual brain tumor but not

active in the surrounding healthy brain tissue around it. Anyway, so far,

the patients lives have been extended for another year. This is huge.

My question, could this vaccine help patients?

[Guest guest]

Thank you Caroline for your response. I may have said this before but my kids

did have the chicken pox vaccination and they both ended up with a full blown

case of the chicken pox. So,obviously, they did not develop immunity when they

received the shot. Yes, I wish my father could have at least tried that when he

was still alive. I only hope it will work for others that are now suffering from

this brutal cancer.

All the best,

Jill