Marta Bárcena Castro, Inés de Cáceres Renovell, María Cacicedo Jaroszynska and Carmen Candilejo Deleyto.
April 11th, 2018.
Ovarian cancer is usually detected when it has already spread, and even after treatment there is a high probability that it bounces back.
Cancer vaccines have managed to get into a clinical environment. Most of these vaccines aim is to train immune cells, so they can recognize specific molecules that are usually present in cancer cells. However, tumors are different among people, so personalized vaccines are being developed. This way vaccines can be effective against the specific tumor of the person.
For this, Lana Kandalaff and her team, from Lausanne University (Switzerland) have taken tumor samples. These cells were killed with acid, exposing different molecules. The dead cells are mixed with immune cells from the woman´s blood and grown before being injected into the woman.
To prove effectives and safety of these vaccines, they were administered to 5 women with recurrent ovarian cancer, and to 20 women with ovarian cancer, combining it with chemotherapy drugs.
Results show that the vaccine was safe and triggered an immune response against the tumor. Survival rates were best for those women who received the vaccine and chemotherapy drugs.
As ovarian cancer has a high tendency to reappear, it has been proposed to administer the vaccine post-surgery to diminish the chances of this happening.
Keywords: #microbiology #canceresearch #vaccines
Wong, S. (2018). Ovarian cancer vaccine improves women´s survival rates. New Scientist magazine.https://www.newscientist.com/article/2166101-ovarian-cancer-vaccine-improves-womens-survival-rates/Last visit October 18th 2018.
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