NEW CANCER VACCINE PREVENTS RELAPSE!
CUSTOMIZED cancer vaccines — created from patients’ own tumors — prevented the deadly disease from recurring after surgery, according to results from a startling medical trial.
Eight people with head and neck tumors facing an elevated risk of relapse remained disease-free for at least four months after receiving initial doses of personalized vaccines, scientists at Britain’s Clatterbridge Cancer Centre found.
But two folks in a control group, who did not receive the shots, saw their cancer return within the same time frame.
The therapeutic injections use technology similar to the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations, scientists say.
Snippets of DNA from cancerous tumors are attached to a weakened — and harmless — smallpox virus. Patients were injected with weekly doses of the medication created from their own tumors for six weeks with boosters scheduled every three weeks for a year in the ongoing study.
The researchers hope the tailored treatments, which are unique to each patient due to their own cellular mutations, will permanently teach the body’s immune system to recognize — and eliminate — rogue disease-causing cells.
Dr. Christian Ottensmeier, director of clinical research at the center, acknowledges the study sample is small but admits he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the trial’s results.
“The immune system can see things we can’t see on scans,” explains Ottensmeier. “If we can train the immune system to pick those cells that would otherwise lead to a relapse at a time when we can’t even see them, then the longterm survival chances for our patients are much higher.”
Miracle med made from patients’ own tumors