A research aimed at testing the efficacy of a new immunotherapy treatment against solid tumors in children, developed by specialists at the "Children Against Cancer" Clinic, has received a Clínica Universidad de Navarra financial aid The "La Caixa" Foundation and Fundación Caja Navarra, through the "Niños Contra el Cáncer" Clinic program, have granted a 300,000 euro grant to the project. This economic contribution is the result of a agreement of partnership signed between the aforementioned institutions, whose goal is to improve the survival and quality of life of children and adolescents.

Boosting Immunotherapy in the Clinic

The treatment being studied by the Clinic's researchers, led by Dr. Ana Patiño, consists of vaccines made with the patient's own immune system cells (dendritic cells). These cell units are prepared at laboratory to "teach" the lymphocytes (cells responsible for the body's defense) to fight against tumor cells in advanced solid tumors. These include recurrent and/or metastatic sarcomas and central nervous system (CNS) tumors.

La Clínica is the sponsoring institution of the research and the only center that will develop it. The Ministry of Health has recently authorized this clinical essay whose goal is to test the safety and efficacy of the treatment described. The study is also being financed by high school de Salud Carlos III.

Obra Social "La Caixa" and Fundación Caja Navarra have agreed to allocate the amount of 300,000 euros for this project of research against cancer, at a rate of 100,000 euros for each of the three years of validity of the clinical essay .

The objectives of work of research are focused on improving the survival and quality of life of pediatric and adolescent patients with high solid tumors Degree, evaluating the safety of the treatment and its impact on other clinical efficacy parameters, as well as measuring the biological efficacy of the vaccine by programs of study in vitro of the humoral and cellular immune response.

Vaccines for 10 patients

This new relationship between Obra Social La Caixa, Fundación Caja Navarra and the Clinic "will make it possible to propose a new therapeutic strategy to 10 patients with CNS tumors and advanced or metastatic sarcomas treated at the Clinic," said Dr. Patiño.

It is important to highlight that this financial aid in addition to allowing the development of the vaccines of the patients recruited for the essay, "supposes a support for the stable hiring of staff that carries out the procedures and that is an enormously qualified and specialized staff , whose stability is fundamental for this and other ongoing projects", the researcher has underlined.

As has been emphasized on several occasions, she points out, "as this is a clinical essay of an advanced therapeutic product developed at our center, we have managed to ensure that its use is simultaneous with any other treatment subject (surgery, radio and chemotherapy) that the patient may need due to his or her disease". The specialist has insisted, in this sense, that "these 10 patients will not be deprived of any treatment that could be fundamental for their cure or remission, patients who, in many cases, have a very unfavorable prognosis".