A global clinical trial has concluded that the vaccine can give patients years of extra life.
One of the trial's chief investigators said the evidence showed that DCVax had resulted in improved survival for patients.
The breakthrough could benefit 2,500 people a year in the UK who are diagnosed with the most common form of brain cancer. Some people with the disease live less than a year after being diagnosed.
A patient in the multicentre global study lived for more than eight years after receiving DC Vax. A British man is still alive seven years after having it.
Prof Keyoumars Ashkan was the European chief investigator of the trial and he said the results were amazing. The final results of the trial give patients hope.
Older people and people for whom surgery was not an option were shown to benefit from the vaccine.
DC Vax would be the first new treatment in 17 years for newly diagnosed patients and the first in 27 years for people who had previously received it.
Newly diagnosed patients who had the vaccine survived for 19.3 months on average, compared with 16 months for those who did not.
People with recurrent glioblastoma who received DCVax lived an average of more than a year longer than people who did not.
The results of the trial, which was published on Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Oncology, show that 13% of people who received it lived for at least five years after they were diagnosed.
The vaccine uses the body's immune system to attack the tumours. It is the first of its kind.
The vaccine stimulates the patient's immune system to fight the tumours. The most intelligent system known to man is the patient's immune system.
The vaccine is made from a patient's own cancer cells and white blood cells. The white cells are taught how to recognize a tumours.
When the vaccine is administered, the educated white blood cells help the rest of the patient's immune system recognize the tumours as something it needs to fight against and destroy. It's almost like training a dog
The vaccine isn't available on the National Health Service. Northwest Biotherapeutics is the US company that makes it.
Patients who have been deprived of new clinical options for too long need to be able to access the treatment to prolong their lives, according to a charity.
According to Dr Karen Noble, the charity's director, DCVax is the first emerging therapy proven effective in treating glioblastoma since 2005 and what the brain tumours community hopes is for it to become affordable, possibly becoming standard of care on the National Health Service.
The average survival time for glioblastoma is less than a year. There are stories like Mr French's that are welcome. The final results of the trial are very encouraging.
The majority of the patients in the trial were in the UK. There were 232 people who had DCVax and 99 who didn't. All 331 of them had surgery to remove as much of their brain cancer as possible.
The vaccine can improve outcomes for people who don't respond well to therapy. It could be a big step forward in beating this type of brain tumours if it is approved.
There is an end.
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