“This trial is significant because pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult solid tumour cancers to treat and the progress in treatments has been slow”, says Dr Shailesh Shrikhande..
This trial is significant because pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult solid tumour cancers to treat and the progress in treatments has been slow, says Dr Shailesh Shrikhande, who heads India’s highest volume centre for pancreatic cancer surgery at Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Hospital.
Remember the mRNA vaccines that were rolled out for the first time during the pandemic? Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre had begun working with the same technology much before to develop personalised vaccines against pancreatic cancer. Their phase I trial, which was recently published in the journal Nature, shows that eight of the 16 patients who received the vaccine were able to mount an immune response against cancer cells. No cancer was detected during the18-month follow-up in these patients. But the cancer came back in approximately13 months after surgery in those among whom the vaccine did not work.
Read the complete article in Indian Express at Vaccine for pancreatic cancer shows promise in a small trial. Will this be the breakthrough everybody is looking for?