Idiotypic (Id) vaccination has shown promising results in patients with follicular lymphoma (FL). However, it still remains unclear whether
the same approach might be suitable for the treatment of other B-cell malignancies. For this reason, we recently performed an interim analysis
of patients proposed to receive this treatment at our center.
The feasibility of employing idiotype vaccines was evaluated for five different B-cell malignancies in their first relapse, both in terms of
induction and fusion, as well as overall treatment. Our data suggest that, unlike follicular lymphoma (87%), this approach is not feasible to
treat other B-cell malignancies (0–20%) such as mantle cell, small lymphocytic, diffuse large cell and Burkitt’s lymphoma (P < 0.01). The
main difficulties encountered were technical problems related to the survival of idiotype-producing hybridomas (83%) and the early loss of
idiotype production by growing hybridomas (17%).
However, it remains possible that an idiotype vaccine might still be produced through molecular means for most, if not all cases of relapsing
B-cell malignancies
