A trial of a vaccine called DCVax-L for glioblastoma

Cancer type:

Brain (and spinal cord) tumours

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 3

This trial looked at personalised vaccines to treat a type of brain tumour called glioblastoma. It was for people who had recently been diagnosed and were due to have surgery.

More about this trial

Doctors often treat glioblastoma (GBM) with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. They wanted to see if having a vaccine called DCVax-L helps. 

DCVax-L is a type of immunotherapy called a dendritic cell vaccine Open a glossary item. They use immune cells called dendritic cells to make the vaccine. The researchers mix these cells with proteins from brain tumour cells.

Doctors hoped DCVax-L would help the immune system to recognise and kill brain tumour cells.

People in this trial were put into a treatment group at random. Some had the chemotherapy drug temozolomide and DCVax-L. And some had temozolomide and a dummy drug (placebo).

The main aim of the trial was to see if DCVax-L helps people with glioblastoma live longer.

Summary of results

Summary of results
As part of our editorial policy, any trial information we write is checked externally before we put it on our website. The research team have published some results for this trial. But we have been unable to find anyone involved with the trial to check the summary for us. 

This means we are not able to include a plain English summary of the results on this page.

More information
There is more information about this trial in the links to the medical journal papers below.  

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for health care professionals and researchers. 

Association of Autologous Tumor Lysate-Loaded Dendritic Cell Vaccination With Extension of Survival Among Patients With Newly Diagnosed and Recurrent Glioblastoma
L. Liau and others
JAMA Oncology, 2023. Volume 9, issue 1, pages 112 – 121.

First results on survival from a large Phase 3 clinical trial of an autologous dendritic cell vaccine in newly diagnosed glioblastoma
L Liau and others
Journal of Transitional Medicine, 2018. Volume 16, article number 142.

Recruitment start:

Recruitment end:

How to join a clinical trial

Please note: In order to join a trial you will need to discuss it with your doctor, unless otherwise specified.

Please note - unless we state otherwise in the summary, you need to talk to your doctor about joining a trial.

Chief Investigator

Prof Keyoumars Ashkan

Supported by

Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC)
NIHR Clinical Research Network: Cancer
Northwest Biotherapeutics

If you have questions about the trial please contact our cancer information nurses

Freephone 0808 800 4040

Last review date

CRUK internal database number:

8494

Please note - unless we state otherwise in the summary, you need to talk to your doctor about joining a trial.

Last reviewed:

Rate this page:

Currently rated: 3.6 out of 5 based on 54 votes
Thank you!
We've recently made some changes to the site, tell us what you think