Melanoma vaccine data

Researchers at the John Wayne Cancer Institute (Santa Monica, Calif.) reported a retrospective analysis over 22 years of 984 patients treated for melanoma metastasized to the lung or chest, of which 106 were treated with surgery to remove the tumor.

Of the surgical patients, 63 percent were given some form of immunotherapy with various vaccines, compared to 34 percent of those who did not get surgery. Statistical analysis showed that the only factor other than surgery that was associated with improved survival was the use of a polyvalent melanoma cell vaccine (p<0.0001 for both surgery and the vaccine). ...