MONDAY, April 11 (HealthDay News) -- A vaccine that jumpstarts the immune system is showing promise in keeping a deadly type of cancerous brain tumor at bay.
Glioblastoma, or malignant glioma, is the most common type of cancerous brain tumor. It's also deadly -- most people die about 12 to 14 months after diagnosis, said Dr. Isaac Yang, a neurosurgeon at University of California, Los Angeles, and lead author of a study on the vaccine.
Sen. Ted Kennedy died from a glioblastoma in 2009.
In the clinical trials, researchers created individualized vaccines for 34 patients using brain tumor tissue and the patient's own dendritic cells, which are part of the immune...