Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Is Promising
- By BSTQ Staff
A Phase II clinical trial that is testing the success of a pancreatic cancer vaccine is giving researchers hope that the treatment might be ready for wide distribution within the next couple of years. In the trial, 62 percent of patients who used the vaccine in combination with traditional treatments were cancer-free for at least a year. The year-long survival rate was 86 percent.
Unlike preventive vaccines, the pancreatic cancer vaccine is given to patients after they have already been diagnosed with the disease. It is made up of two types of human pancreatic cancer cells, which the patient’s body recognizes as foreign cells. “Theoretically, this primes a patient’s immune system into trying to fight his or her own pancreatic cancer,” says Jeffrey Hardacre, a doctor at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and lead author of the study.
Researchers have been working on the vaccine for several years, and Phase III clinical trials have started. They are looking into using similar vaccines to treat melanoma and lung cancer.
