The next big development for cancer treatment may be in the form of a vaccine
Many expect this type of vaccine to be produced within five years (AB)
The aim of the shot would be to shrink tumors and prevent the disease from coming back
The next big development for cancer treatment may be in the form of a vaccine. After decades of limited success, scientists say research has reached a turning point, with many expecting this type of vaccine to be produced within five years.
These vaccines are not traditional ones that can prevent the disease, but rather their aim is to shrink tumors and prevent cancer from returning. The targets of these experimental treatments include breast and lung cancer , with successes reported this year for deadly skin cancer (melanoma) and pancreatic cancer .
Dr. James Jolly, who works at the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Research Center in the US that develops immunotherapies, including cancer treatment vaccines, said, "We have an effective vaccine now, but we need to make it work better."
Scientists understand more than ever how cancer hides from the body's immune system . This is where cancer vaccines come in. Like other immunotherapies, they boost the immune system to find and kill cancer cells . Some of the new vaccines also use "messenger RNA" (mRNA), which was developed for cancer, but was first used for COVID-19 vaccines.
For the vaccine to work, it needs to teach the T cells in the immune system how to recognize cancer as a threat, said Dr. Nora Dessis of the University of Washington's Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle. Over time, these cells can travel anywhere in the body to track down danger. "If you see an active T cell, it travels through the blood vessels to get out into the tissues," she added.
It is mentioned that sick volunteers are a key factor in the research.
Kathleen Jade, 50, who learned she had breast cancer in late February just weeks before she and her husband left Seattle for a round-the-world adventure, is involved in a vaccine test aimed at shrinking the tumor before surgery. Instead of sailing their 46-foot boat, Shadowfax, across the lakes towards the St. Lawrence Seaway, she was sitting on a hospital bed waiting for her third dose of an experimental vaccine.
"Even if it was a slim chance, I felt it was worth it," says Jade, who is also receiving approved treatments.
Progress in treatment vaccines has been a challenge. The first vaccine, called Provenge, was approved in the US in 2010 to treat metastatic prostate cancer, and requires a patient's immune cells to be processed in a laboratory and returned through a vein. There are also therapeutic vaccines for early bladder cancer and advanced skin cancer.
“Early cancer vaccine research was hampered by cancer overpowering patients’ weakened immune systems,” said Olga Finn, a vaccine researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "All these failed experiences allowed us to learn a lot," she added.
As a result, Finn's attention turned toward people with early-stage disease because experimental vaccines had not been shown to be effective in treating more advanced patients. Her group plans to study a vaccine in women with a low-risk, non-invasive breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ.
There may be more vaccines that prevent cancer in the future, too. Decades-old hepatitis B vaccines have proven effective in preventing liver cancer. Likewise, the HPV vaccines, introduced in 2006, prevent cervical cancer.
In Philadelphia, Dr. Susan Domchik, director of the Basser Center at Penn Medicine, is testing the vaccine on 28 healthy people with BRCA mutations. These mutations increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer . The aim is to kill the abnormal cells very early, before they can do any harm. Here it is akin to weeding the garden periodically or wiping down a whiteboard.
Others are developing vaccines to prevent cancer in people with precancerous lung nodules and other genetic conditions that increase the risk of cancer.
“Vaccines may be the next big breakthrough in the quest to reduce cancer deaths,” says Dr. Steve Lipkin, a medical geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York who leads a project funded by the National Cancer Institute. “We're devoting our lives to it.”
Dr. Eduardo Villar Sanchez of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who is leading two government-funded studies on vaccines for cancers associated with Lynch syndrome [a genetic condition characterized by an increased risk of colorectal and endometrial cancer, due to mutations in DNA repair genes], explained that "People with hereditary Lynch syndrome have a 60 percent to 80 percent lifetime risk of developing cancer. Recruiting them for cancer vaccine trials has been remarkably easy." "Patients are doing this in a surprisingly positive way," he added.
Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck are jointly developing an mRNA vaccine for people with skin cancer, with a large study starting this year that will personalize the vaccines for each patient, based on the many mutations in their cancerous tissue. A vaccine customized in this way can train the immune system to look for the signature of a cancer mutation and kill those cells.
To be sure, such vaccines would be very expensive.
"You basically have to make every vaccine from scratch," said Dr. Patrick Ott of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. "If it's not for every patient, it can probably be made for pennies, just like the Covid vaccine."
It is worth noting that the vaccines under development at the University of Washington School of Medicine are designed to be used on many patients, not just one patient. Tests are now under way in patients with early and advanced breast cancer, lung cancer and ovarian cancer. As for the results, some of them may come by next year.
Todd Pepper, 56, from the Seattle suburbs, is participating in a vaccine test aimed at shrinking lung cancer tumors. The disease has spread to his brain, but he hopes to live long enough to see his daughter graduate from nursing school next year.
Bieber spoke of his decision to volunteer: "I have nothing to lose, everything to gain, both for myself and for other people in the future."
Jamie Karras of Mercer Island was one of the first recipients of the ovarian cancer vaccine in a vaccine safety study 11 years ago. Diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer when she was 34, she thought she would die young and wrote a will for her best friend to inherit her favorite necklace. Now, at 50, she has no sign of cancer and still wears the necklace. She knows for sure if the vaccine helped, "but I'm still alive," she says.
The Associated Press Health and Science division receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Media and Science Group. The Associated Press is solely responsible for the content of the report.
Source: websites