Melanoma affects approximately 132,000 people a year worldwide and is the biggest skin cancer killer. Currently, surgery is the main treatment, and other options include radiation therapy, drugs, or chemotherapy.
Experts in the UK have started a series of tests in which the injections are personalized for each participating patient, and through the administered doses they tell the patient’s body to hunt cancer cells to prevent the recurrence of the disease, they note The Guardian.
The tests are in the third stage, the final one, after the results of the second stage showed that the vaccines drastically reduced the risk of cancer recurrence in melanoma patients, according to the cited source. The research and trials are led by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) in the UK.
Patients received 1 mg of mRNA vaccine every three weeks, for a maximum of nine doses, and 200 mg of Keytruda every three weeks (maximum of 18 doses) for about a year.
Dr. Heather Shaw, the national coordinator of the study, said that the vaccines have the potential to cure people with melanoma, and they are also being tested in the case of other types of cancer, including lung, bladder and kidney.
“This is one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in a very long time,” Shaw said, according to The Guardian.
How the vaccine works
This injection is an individualized neoantigen therapy and can prompt the immune system to fight back based on the patient’s specific type of cancer, he says. Sky News.
To create personalized therapy, a tumor sample is taken and its DNA is sequenced, and artificial intelligence also plays an important role. The result is a personalized anticancer injection that is specific to the patient’s tumor.
The ultimate goal is to permanently cure patients of their cancer, Shaw said.
“I think there is real hope that these will be game changers in immunotherapy,” she said.
The third, final phase of the study will include a larger number of patients, and the researchers hope to recruit around 1,100 people.
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