Skin Cancer Cure: Personalized Vaccines Show Promising Results in Trials

By Rachel Cruz, Christian Post Contributor Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Two experimental studies on vaccines for skin cancer cure showed promising results. The treatment used in the small-scale trials have been personalized or specifically tailor-made to match the patient's cancer mutations.

Both trials' initial results were published in the Nature journal on July 5. The studies on personalized vaccines that target the body's neoantigens are groundbreaking endeavors in the field of medicine and cancer cure.

Cancer treatments like chemotherapy kill both healthy and cancer cells, which result in severe side effects for the patients. By targeting the neoantigens or mutations using a personalized vaccine, however, cancer cure can be safer and "consistently immunogenic," according to the study authors.

The first trial involved looking into the patients' molecule ribonucleic acid (RNA). Some 13 people with stage 3 or 4 melanoma were vaccinated and observed for a period of two years. Of these patients, five relapsed while one fully responded well and remained free of the disease during the course of the study. The rest of the patients showed partial and promising response to the vaccine.

The second trial involved targeting protein molecules. Six patients were vaccinated seven times after their surgery. Four of the patients with stage 3 melanoma showed no signs of relapse after 25 months. The other two patients with stage 4 melanoma had a relapse despite their bodies responding well to the vaccines.

The experts, however, cannot conclude that the vaccine is 100 percent effective for now. "The number of patients who were treated is low, so there is certainly a likelihood that these patients would have stayed cancer-free without vaccine," co-study author Patrick Ott said. The experts want to purse the study in a larger scale to determine the viability of personalized vaccines.

Dr. Catherine Pickworth of the Cancer Research UK agreed that the study should be expanded in order to see if the vaccines could replace current treatments. A bigger trial will also help researchers learn about the vaccines' long-term effects.