Developing pancreatic cancer is one of people’s most persistent fears and for strong reasons. We’re talking about a disease that has the lowest survival rate of all types of cancer. Only 3 to 6% of pancreatic cancer patients can survive for five years.
According to the New York Post, a new mRNA-based vaccine might represent the key to putting an end to pancreatic cancer. An early study that BioNTech conducted is what now gives hope that pancreatic cancer can be defeated through a vaccine.
Half of the participants got rid of their cancer months after the vaccination
The trial in question was led at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan by Dr. Vinod Balachandran, and it made 8 out of 16 participants get rid of cancer a year and a half after their tumors were removed and after they received the vaccination.
Doctors are confident that the vaccine might be able to make the body’s immune system boost immune cells to kill pancreatic cancer by focusing on tumors.
Dr. Balachandran explained, as the New York Post quotes:
Unlike some of the other immunotherapies, these mRNA vaccines do appear to have the ability to stimulate immune responses in pancreatic cancer patients,
So we’re very excited about that, and the early results that suggest that if you have an immune response, you may have a better outcome.
However, it’s still too early to start celebrating, although the results are indeed promising.
Here’s what Prof. Özlem Türeci had to say, a co-founder of BioNTech, as the same source quotes:
We are committed to take up this challenge by leveraging our long-standing research in cancer vaccinology and are trying to break new ground in the treatment of such hard-to-treat tumors,
The results of this Phase 1 study are encouraging. We look forward to further evaluating these early results in a larger randomized study.
The new results were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference that took place in Chicago.
