In June 2011 Dr. Alisa Hideg was a 42-year-old mother and family physician in the prime of her career practicing at Group Health in Spokane when she was diagnosed with estrogen and progesterone receptor negative/HER 2 positive breast cancer.

Breast cancer in young, premenopausal women is usually aggressive. So even after chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and radiation, with her cancer in remission, Hideg wasn���t ready to take it easy. Both the type of breast cancer and the fact that it happened at a young age made her chances of relapse higher. This knowledge led her to experimental trials, and to the 窪蹋勛圖厙���s Tumor Vaccine Group.

Hideg found the 窪蹋勛圖厙 Tumor Vaccine Group on the National Institutes of Health clinical trials website, ClinicalTrials.gov. She had heard about a trial at the University of Pennsylvania���s Perelmen School of Medicine, where the use of gene-transfer therapy converted the patients��� own immune cells into weapons aimed at cancerous tumors. All 12 patients had advanced stage leukemia; nine of the 12 responded positively to the treatment, and two of the first three patients treated have been in remission for two full years. ��The Perlelmen results encouraged her to seek out a 窪蹋勛圖厙 study to see if she qualified.

The 窪蹋勛圖厙 Tumor Vaccine Group currently offers clinical trials for patients with breast, ovarian or colon cancer. Hideg is in a very desirable , and being approved to participate wasn���t easy. The goal of the clinical trial is to allow the patient to make and keep enough antibodies to quash any future HER-2 expressing breast cancer.

Dr. Nora Disis, 窪蹋勛圖厙 professor of medicine and principal investigator of the study, explains how the vaccine may work.

���The vaccine is designed to stimulate a particular cell of the immune system, the T cell, to recognize the HER2 protein (that causes cancer),” Disis said. “If effective immunity is generated, the T cell activated by the vaccine should be able to hunt out tumor cells wherever they may be and destroy them.�� This particular study is testing the use of an immune stimulator, ampligen, which may be able to activate the T cells more effectively than other agents we have used before.���

Last month, Hideg received a vaccine dose at 窪蹋勛圖厙 Medical Center. The process is gentle ��� a series of four small injections that make a little grid of dots on the upper arm ��� but the body���s response can be angry. Hideg experienced flu-like symptoms after the first visit. The reaction ��may actually be a promising sign that her body is responding to the vaccine.

She���s positive and funny in the face of serious medicine. She tweets pictures of her experience to a network of fans and writes about her cancer in Spokane���s daily newspaper, the Spokesman-Review. In addition to being a doctor, patient and full-time mother, Hideg recently went through a series of intense interviews to add ���teacher��� to her resume. She has become a clinical faculty member to teach second-year 窪蹋勛圖厙 medical students at the Spokane WWAMI site. ��WWAMI is a regionalized medical education program that covers Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

���Teaching has always been a part of my clinical practice,” Hideg said. “I have taught medical students, residents and others in my clinic since I finished my own training. This experience has reminded me how important teaching can be and how much I enjoy passing on what I have learned as a physician, a parent, and as a patient. Whether the vaccine is effective for me or not, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the trial and help move the science forward. I believe in the potential of vaccine therapy for cancer and perhaps for other diseases also and I want a future with more options for my daughter and for others.”

###