A new vaccine study has shown promising results in the fight against cancer, with all participants experiencing remission.
The vaccine, developed by a team at the Yale Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer, was tested on a small group of participants suffering from kidney cancer. Despite the nine patients having stages three and four clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), all were free from the disease three years after obtaining the shots.
The vaccine works to train the immune system to identify specific mutations in cancerous tumors that would not be found in healthy cells. First author of the report and lead investigator at the Yale Cancer Center, Dr. David Braun, says the trial was designed to “steer the immune system toward a target that is unique to the tumor,” per The Daily Mail.
The results of the study are potentially groundbreaking, given the type of cancer the participants had kills upwards of 90% of people with the condition. Normally, just 10-15% of people with late-stage ccRCC survive after five years.
In all nine cases, the patients had an immune response to the vaccine, meaning the treatment activated the body’s defenses. According to the study’s authors, the immune system was able to identify upwards of 65% of the cancer-causing mutations in the tumors.
To develop the shots, researchers had to sequence the genetics of each patient’s tumors. This enabled them to identify specific proteins and subsequently synthesize peptides in a lab, which could then recognize them. Those peptides were later combined to create the vaccine.
“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.
Each year, around 80,000 new cases of renal cell carcinoma are diagnosed in the United States. Globally, it ranks among the 10 most common cancers, with the highest rates showing up in the Western world, typically in men.