Groundbreaking New Vaccine Claims To Reverse Cancer In Those With the Fatal Disease; Here's How

A new cancer vaccine is being said to have reversed the disease in nine patients, according to a study. Researchers said that patients with fatal diseases alongside cancer remained disease-free for at least three years after receiving the doses.

The research, conducted by Yale University, has been testing personalised treatments against end-stage or metastised kidney cancer. For every person with the disease, the vaccine was unique to them, created by examining the DNA and RNA in their tumour.

Scientists said it helped identify individual mutations in each of their cancers that were not present in otherwise normal and healthy cells. Like all vaccines, personalised cancer vaccines train the body’s immune system to hunt down and destroy a threat.

Researchers said all nine participants had undergone surgery to treat stage three or four kidney cancer. After that, the jab boosted their immune systems to seek out any remaining cancer cells while avoiding healthy cells.

Currently approved immune therapies for kidney cancer are said to “release the brakes” on the immune system to allow it to attack cancer cells, but they do not tell the immune cells where to go. As a result, some patients do not get much benefit from the treatments, while others may experience side effects from an overactive immune system.

“The idea behind this trial was to specifically steer the immune system toward a target that is unique to the tumour,” Dr. David Braun, the study's first author and researcher at the Yale Cancer Center told The Sun. Kidney cancer is the 13th most common cancer across the world, with 434,840 new cases diagnosed every year.

Dr. Braun said all the patients who participated in the study had clear cell renal cell carcinoma, or ccRCC, and seven had stage three disease. Two had stage four kidney cancer, and studies say only 15 per cent of patients with stage four survive more than five years.

Renal cell carcinoma accounts for 80 per cent of all kidney cancer types. The standard treatment for patients with ccRCC is currently surgery to remove tumours, followed by immunotherapy with targeted therapy to blast the remaining cells. “For patients with high-risk CCRC, we want to improve post-surgery treatment options that reduce the risk of the cancer coming back," said Dr. Braun.

The nine patients received multiple doses of the personalised cancer vaccine. Four of them received just the vaccine, while the remaining five also had small doses of the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab. All nine patients had an immune response to the vaccine within three weeks. Scientists said in seven of nine patients, T cells were capable of recognising the patient’s tumour. Cancer-fighting T cells remained elevated throughout the study and for years afterward, researchers observed.

“This strong and durable activation in T cells was encouraging and indicates that we're able to generate a long-lasting, anti-cancer immune response with the vaccine," said Dr. Braun.

According to Dr. Braun, the patients did experience flu-like symptoms for one to two days after their vaccinations, but no one reported any severe side effects. Also, there were no major differences in outcomes between patients who received ipilimumab along with the jab and those who received the cancer vaccine.

The trial's results, published in the journal Nature, are said to be promising. Researchers said trials with more patients are needed to confirm the vaccine's effectiveness and explore its full potential.

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