RCC preventitve vaccine strategies

Renal Cell Carcinoma
(read disclaimer)

Prophylactic Vaccine Strategies

At this point in time the bulk of research efforts focus more on developing experimental therapies for RCC instead of developing preventitive vaccines. This seems logical since the disease is not readily transmitted through populations like other diseases (e.g. HIV or TB), and directing research efforts on current therapies seems to be yielding promising results.

Since a relationship between RCC and heredity has been observed, a preventitve vaccine might be a good idea for those individuals who are genetically related to RCC patients. Also, it has been estimated that the global incidence of RCC is increasing at about 2% a year; although it is considered rare, the world wide mortality of RCC is expected to exceed 100,000 in the year 2000.

There are a variety of strategies for developing a potential prophylactic vaccine for RCC, the following is a general list of some of the considerations researchers make in developing vaccines:

IIdentify the Pathogen in the case of RCC, the disease is propogated by cancerous host renal cells

Diagnosis of the Disease State there is no serum test to date. X-ray, CT scan, MRI, and ultrasound can aid in diagnosis, biopsy yields definitive diagnoses.

Correlates to Immunity observations of spontaneous regressions suggest the existence of a natural immune state to the disease

Protective Antigens a few tumor-associated antigens (TAA) have been identified, the more extensively studied being G250

Development in Laboratory, Clinical Trials, FDA approval and Commercialization/Distribution these processes take time but are neccesary to ensure safety and efficacy

(Back to our Index Page)
(See our section on Therapeutic Vaccines)

* (This page was developed by undergraduate students at Brown University as a project for a course in Vaccine Development.
            The authors of this page are not certified medical professionals. Biomedical Research and Clinical Medicine are constantly
            evolving fields, thus it is likely that significant advances in research and new treatments for Renal Cell Carcinoma have
            come into existence following the posting of this page. To the best of our knowledge, all information presented in this
            page reflects the prevalent opinions of the field as of March 17, 2000)

IIdentify the Pathogen	in the case of RCC, the disease is propogated by cancerous host renal cells
Diagnosis of the Disease State	there is no serum test to date. X-ray, CT scan, MRI, and ultrasound can aid in diagnosis, biopsy yields definitive diagnoses.
Correlates to Immunity	observations of spontaneous regressions suggest the existence of a natural immune state to the disease
Protective Antigens	a few tumor-associated antigens (TAA) have been identified, the more extensively studied being G250
Development in Laboratory, Clinical Trials, FDA approval and Commercialization/Distribution	these processes take time but are neccesary to ensure safety and efficacy