ProQuest Dialog delivers answers

In the September issue of Eye on Innovation, we explored Dialog sources to find innovative use of vaccines and immunotherapy to complement current treatments for cancers. This case study on treating non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) with vaccines shows the ease and power of using ProQuest Dialog™ to find the information you need.

Case Study information
A patient with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has just completed chemotherapy and his disease is in remission. He knows, however, that he must have treatment now to keep the cancer from returning. He was told about the new option of vaccine treatment to complement his completed treatment. He wants to know more—especially about the drugs that are either available now, have just been approved for use, the potential side effects, and if/when he might be able to have access to vaccines currently in development.

We'll search ProQuest Dialog for some answers and illustrate the process with short clips throughout.

Step 1: Scan for relevant therapies

A quick search of Gale Group PROMT^® in the Biosciences and Pharmaceutical category reveals the following:

• Cell Therapeutics in Seattle, WA, announces a European launch of Pixuvri for treatment of adult patients with non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma.
• Mundipharma and Genentech have drugs in Phase III clinical trials.
• Biovest International is seeking approval in Europe and Canada for BiovaxID, a personalized vaccine that takes advantage of a person's immune system. Biovest is also working with the FDA on a further Phase III clinical trial for BiovaxID.

Note: Sources in PROMT include not only newswires and trade journals but also IMS R&D Focus Drug News, a pharmaceutical database.

Click on the Log In screen to ProQuest Dialog to see a short video showing how to find the above information in Gale Group PROMT.

Step 2: Get the medical details
He also wants to understand the function of the immune system as it relates to cancer treatment. Searching two authoritative databases—MEDLINE^® and Embase^®—provides information on how the immune system works to treat patients with cancer, as well as recent advances and future opportunities in immuno-oncology for improving cancer treatment.

Step 3: Research treatment options
Our patient now understands how vaccine treatment works, and wants to learn the status of vaccines for NHL, for example, BiovaxID. Here he has the advantage of searching several authoritative pharmacology databases, for example, Adis R&D Insight, Derwent Drug File, Adis Clinical Trials Insight and IMS R&D Focus. Previewing some of the records, provides an historic view of trials for BiovaxID and data about the latest U.S. trial and reveals two patents that provide pointers for exploring further in Dialog patent files.

With this quick scan using ProQuest Dialog, the patient learned more about vaccine treatment for cancer and the status of clinical trials for some of the current and upcoming vaccine drugs. He could continue further to find out more about specific companies developing cancer vaccines or identify the status of vaccine approval in different parts of the world, such as Europe and Canada.

ProQuest Dialog makes it easy for our non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patient to delve into authoritative sources and assemble a comprehensive view of the biomedical, pharmaceutical and business information needed to be prepared for the next phase of treatment.

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