Bladder cancer vaccine
A tumor-busting, life-saving injection may be ready for prime time in about five years.
The vaccine, effective against deadly cancers in areas of the body like the breast, bowel and cervix, is being tested on some patients, according to the Daily Mail. The vaccine, which is being developed with Celldex Therapeutics, a U.S. company, revs up the immune system and tells it to destroy a hormone called hCG. That hormone, normally present only during pregnancy, is also made by about half of patients who have bladder and pancreatic cancer, and some people who have breast, bowel, ovarian and cervical tumors.
The shot shrinks the tumors and stops them from spreading.
“Not only are you causing the cancer to shrink, it is not metastazising,” Middlesex University Professor Ray Iles, creator of the vaccine, told the Daily Mail. “If you come in with chemotherapy and surgery, you’ve got a cure.”
The vaccine, now being tested on 60 bladder cancer patients, has been used on animals with “extremely good” results, according to the Daily Mail. While large trials would be necessary before it could be used, Iles predicts, “The vaccine has the potential to help us make rapid advances in the treatment of this invasive cancer.”
While destroying hCG in a woman with the vaccine would mean that the shot was also functioning as a contraceptive, that would just be in the short term. Within a year of completing treatment, a woman’s fertility should return to normal.
Read full story on the Daily Mail here.
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https://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/07/13/2010-07-13_shot_that_stops_many_deadly_forms_of_cancer_may_be_ready_in_5_years_scientists.html#ixzz0uA1ujfSC