Moffitt breast cancer trial tests immunotherapy to replace chemotherapy

Doctors in Tampa are experimenting with a way to treat breast cancer without chemotherapy.Moffitt cancer trialMoffitt Cancer Center in Tampa is running a clinical trial that tests immunotherapy to treat breast cancer without chemotherapy. The treatment uses a custom dendritic cell vaccine made directly from a patient's own blood.The clinical trial targets patients diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer, which is one of the three most common types of breast cancer. Dr. Heath Han, a medical oncologist at Moffitt, says HER2-positive is one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, and is difficult to treat."We will take blood from patients' patients' blood, and manufacture a specific dendritic cell vaccine in the cell therapy vaccine lab at the Moffitt Cancer Center," Han said. "And these dendritic cell vaccines are designed to make tumor microenvironment better, to increase immune infiltration. So potentially, they can attack the cancer cells and also help the treatment work bet