Intravesical Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG) immunotherapy is the standard initial therapy for patients with high-grade urothelial bladder cancer without muscle invasion. While minor complications due to intravesical BCG immunotherapy are common, cutaneous infections of the glans penis are quite rare. Granulomatous balanitis can be devastating if not identified and treated early. A well-establis...

A prime-boost strategy conserving BCG is considered the most promising vaccine to control tuberculosis. A boost with a DNA vaccine containing the mycobacterial gene of a heat shock protein (pVAXhsp65) after BCG priming protected mice against experimental tuberculosis. However, anti-hsp65 immunity could worsen an autoimmune disease due to molecular mimicry. In this investigation, we evaluated th...

The only tuberculosis vaccine currently available, bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is a poor inducer of CD8(+) T cells, which are particularly important for the control of latent tuberculosis and protection against reactivation. As the induction of strong CD8(+) T cell responses is a hallmark of DNA vaccines, a combination of BCG with plasmid DNA encoding a prototype TB antigen (Ag85A) was tested...

This paper provides recommendations on the management of complications arising from intravesical treatment with bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) for nonmuscle-invasive bladder tumors. There is minimal recommendations currently available as randomized trials on the side effects of intravesical BCG are lacking and severe complications are usually described in case reports only. All physicians givin...

Purpose The short-term effects of intravesical chemoimmunotherapy with epirubicin and Bacillus CalmetteGuerin (BCG) administered repeatedlly for prophylaxis of recurrence of superficial bladder cancer (pTa, pT1) were investigated in 22 patients with a median of 70 years between March, 1995 and February, 1999, and were compared with those of BCG monotherapy in 50 patients between March, 1995 and...

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most important causes of mortality and morbidity due to infectious diseases. BCG, the vaccine in use, is not fully protective against TB. In a previous study, we have shown that proteoliposomes (outer membrane extracts), obtained from BCG (PLBCG) were able to induce humoral immune responses against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) antigens. With the objective to ...

Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is listed as an intralesional (IL) therapeutic option for inoperable stage III in-transit melanoma in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines. Although the mechanism is unknown, others have reported up to 50% regression of injected lesions, and 17% regression of uninjected lesions in immunocompetent patients after direct injection o...

Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is an attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis that is used widely as a vaccine for tuberculosis and is used as an effective treatment for superficial bladder carcinoma. Despite being the most successful cancer biotherapy, its mechanism of action and response determinants remain obscure. Here, we establish a model system to analyze BCG interaction with bladder canc...

BACKGROUND Worldwide, most infants born to mothers infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) receive bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. Tuberculosis is a major cause of death among infants infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and it should be prevented. However, BCG may itself cause disease (known as "BCGosis") in these infants. Information regarding the immunogenicity of BCG is ...

Mycobacterium bovis BCG, the current vaccine against tuberculosis, is ingested by macrophages promoting the development of effector functions including cell death and microbicidal mechanisms. Despite accumulating reports on M. tuberculosis, mechanisms of BCG/macrophage interaction remain relatively undefined. In vivo, few bacilli are sufficient to establish a mycobacterial infection; however, i...