Shahrin Ahmed: A vaccine is showing promise for breast cancer
Shahrin Ahmed, Medical specialist in oncology at the Canadian Cancer Society, shared a post on X:
“A vaccine is showing promise for breast cancer that is very aggressive. Targeting recurrence of difficult-to-treat triple-negative breast cancer in a single clinical trial-
Patients with triple-negative breast cancer who received an investigational vaccine were shown promising results in a small clinical trial conducted at WashU Medicine.
The treatment’s safety and ability to elicit immune responses were determined by the early-stage trial. The results of a small clinical trial that targeted investigating an investigational vaccine for the prevention of tumor recurrence for patients with triple-negative breast cancer are promising.
This neoantigen DNA vaccine, also known as the trial, is the initial one to report results for breast cancer patients.
At Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine’s Siteman Cancer Center, the phase I clinical trial was performed. The study was conducted on 18 patients with triple-negative breast cancer that was not metastisized, which means it had not spread to other organs.
A personalized vaccine was tailored to target key mutations in each patient’s specific tumor and each patient received the standard of care and three doses of it. These mutations are recognized and attacked by immune cells through training.
The vaccine triggered immune responses in 14 of 18 patients following treatment, and after three years, 16 patients remained cancer-free.
Despite the early-stage trial’s objective of evaluating the vaccine’s safety, it failed to include a control group to determine efficacy. During their analysis, the researchers reviewed historical data from patients with triple-negative breast cancer who were given standard of care only.
Approximately half of those patients remained cancer-free three years after treatment, according to the average.
The hormonal fuel that drives growth of other types of breast cancer is not required for triple-negative breast cancer to develop, making it an aggressive tumor type. Currently, there are no targeted therapies available for triple-negative breast cancer and it is generally treated with traditional methods such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.
The use of personalized vaccines in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, which enhance T-cell activity, is being studied in clinical trials for breast cancer patients. Using this type of vaccine technology, patients with aggressive cancers can be prevented and treatment outcomes can be improved.”
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