Vaccine hope for defeating brain cancer
A vaccine has shown promise at treating an incurable type of brain cancer in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
A vaccine has shown promise at treating an incurable type of brain cancer in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
The vaccine was tested on four adult patients with glioblastoma, the most common and deadly type of brain tumour. It was found to provoke a “fierce” immune response, training the body to recognise cancer cells as harmful and attack the brain tumour so it could no longer grow unchecked.
Personalised cancer vaccines are a new field of medicine and experts hope they will revolutionise treatment options. They are a type of immunotherapy, made using the same mRNA technology seen in Covid vaccines, and recent trials have shown they can improve survival rates in skin and pancreatic cancers.
The new study, led by the University of Florida, suggests the vaccines could also provide a breakthrough for glioblastoma, which affects about three in every 100,000 people. Outcomes are poor with an average survival of nine months, and treatment hasn’t improved for decades.
Australian of the Year Richard Scolyer was diagnosed with glioblastoma in June last year. The melanoma pathologist committed himself as “patient zero” in a pioneering immunotherapy approach that has produced remarkable results ahead of trials.
In the University of Florida trial, experts took genetic material called RNA from each patient’s brain tumour after it was removed and used it to create a tailor-made vaccine. The vaccine makes the tumour cells “look” like a dangerous virus to the body’s immune system, provoking an immune response.
Elias Sayour, the author of the study, explained that the new vaccine “educates” the immune system that a tumour is foreign, meaning it could be a “new paradigm” for cancer treatment.
“In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumours shifting from what we refer to as ‘cold’ – immune cold, very few immune cells, very silenced immune response – to ‘hot’, very active immune response,” she said. “I am hopeful this could be a new paradigm for how we treat patients.”
THE TIMES
Additional reporting: staff reporters
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