M. bovis strain Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has been the only licensed live attenuated vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) for nearly one century and has also been approved as a therapeutic vaccine for bladder cancer treatment since 1990. During its long time usage, different adverse events (AEs) have been reported. However, the AEs associated with the BCG preventive TB vaccine and therapeutic...

PURPOSE In the present study booster efficacies of Ag85 B, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), and Ag85B peptides were evaluated using prime boost regimes in BALB/c mice. MATERIALS AND METHODS Mice were primed with BCG vaccine and subsequently boosted with Ag85B, BCG and cocktail of Ag85B peptides. RESULTS Based on analysis of immune response it was observed mice boosted with Ag85B peptides sho...

BACKGROUND Globally, BCG vaccination varies in efficacy and has some non-specific protective effects. Previous studies comparing BCG strains have been small-scale, with few or no immunological outcomes and have compared TB-specific responses only. We aimed to evaluate both specific and non-specific immune responses to different strains of BCG within a large infant cohort and to evaluate further...

BCG adverse events (BCG-AE) are rare conditions with no well-established treatment. This study aims to describe clinical characteristics and outcome of localized BCG-AE. Children with BCG-AEs who were treated at the Reference Center for Special Immunobiologicals of the Federal University of São Paulo from 2009 to 2011 were included. Patients were followed monthly until 3 months after healing. O...

Intralesional Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has long been a relatively inexpensive therapy for inoperable cutaneous metastatic melanoma (CMM), although intralesional BCG skin mechanisms remain understudied. We analyzed intralesional BCG-treated CMM lesions combined with in vitro studies to further investigate BCG-altered pathways. Since macrophages play a pivotal role again...

BACKGROUND Although the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) has been available for more than 75 years, one third of the world's population is still infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and approximately 2 million people die of TB every year. To reduce this immense TB burden, a clearer understanding of the functional genes underlying the action of BCG and the dev...

PURPOSE We compare the therapeutic efficacy and toxicity of intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) with mitomycin C on recurrence of stages Ta and T1 bladder carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS Combined published and unpublished data from comparative studies on BCG versus mitomycin C for superficial bladder carcinoma considering possible confounding factors were analyzed. Odds ratio (OR) an...

Current efforts are aimed at optimizing the protective efficacy of Mycobacterium bovis BCG by the use of vaccine combinations. We have recently demonstrated that the protection afforded by BCG alone is enhanced by vaccinating cattle with a combination of vaccines comprising BCG and a protein tuberculosis vaccine, namely, culture filtrate proteins (CFPs) from M. bovis plus an adjuvant. In the cu...

It is 35 yr since Morales described the use of intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) for non–muscle invasive bladder cancer (BC). In the interveningyearswehave learned much about this treatment. Although BCG is one of the most studied medicines in urology, many questions regarding its use remain [1]. In this month’s European Urology, Herr et al report their use of induction BCG for high-r...