In an age where skin cancer rates are at an all time high, research into treatment for melanoma is essential. Thankfully, Nature has published two independent studies that show a vaccine is able to stop tumour growth.
Both vaccines – one developed in the US and the other in Germany – were given to 22 patients recovering from melanoma-tumour-removal, but had a high risk of their tumours growing back. To prevent a cancer relapse the US research team created custom vaccines for each patient; and these vaccines stimulated the patient’s immune system into increasing the number of T-cells that could attack skin-cancer cells.
Out of the six patients from the US study, four didn’t experience a cancer recurrence in the following two years after the vaccination.
Germany also created a custom vaccine for each patient’s case, and of the 16 participants more than half remained tumour-free.
Speaking on the study, the US vaccine’s lead physician Catherine Wu told Nature: “They’re personalised because the content of each vaccine is completely determined and designed by the mutation characteristics of that patient’s very own tumour.
“That same vaccine would not work or be appropriate for another individual. It only works for that individual patient.”
And while the development of the vaccine is in its early stages, researchers are hopeful that they will one day be able to develop variants of the vaccine to fight other forms of cancer.
