The experimental therapy is still in early phases of human trials. Image Credit: Depositphotos

Health USA29. April 2022

Phase 1 of New Cancer Treatment Proves (Very) Promising

The American Association of Cancer Research revealed that following the Phase 1 human trial, a new cancer treatment combining immunotherapy and an mRNA vaccine has been proven to be safe, even to treat cancers with solid tumors.

“I was quite skeptical at first because CAR T-therapy hadn’t worked before in solid tumors, so we were very excited to see how the metastases disappeared and the patients improved,” says John Haanen, an oncologist from the Netherlands Cancer Institute working on the new mRNA research. “These patients had a wonderful partial response, and one patient had a complete remission that is still ongoing, lasting now for almost six months.”

The treatment works in two steps. Firstly, the patient is administered a traditional CAR-T cell therapy, an emerging type of cancer immunotherapy that requires the patient’s immune T-cells to be harvested, reprogrammed to target proteins on cancer cells – an antigen called claudin 6 – and reintroduced in the patient. Then, a few days later, the patient receives a shot of an mRNA vaccine designed to prompt cells to produce claudin 6. With more cancer-targeting T cells in the blood, better are the chances for the cells to hunt and destroy tumors. Fourteen cancer patients – with either testicular or ovarian cancers – took part in the trial, and six of them saw a significant decrease in tumor sizes. The mRNA vaccine is sponsored by BioNTech, the company behind Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Source:
New Atlas

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