The world's first personalized mRNA vaccine against melanoma halves the risk of patients dying or having the disease come back, according to the results of a study that doctors described as “extremely impressive”.
Vaccine against skin cancer PHOTO: Archive
The vaccine approach will help improve survival rates for “the next decades and even more”, says Cancer Research UK's chief medical officer.
Melanoma affects more than 150,000 people a year worldwide, according to the 2020 figures of the World Cancer Research Fund International, writes theguardian.com.
Patients who received the vaccine after having stage 3 or 4 melanoma removed had a 49% lower risk of dying or having the disease come back after three years, data presented at the largest cancer conference in world. Britain's NHS is among the organizations testing the vaccine.
A principal investigator of the study, oncologist Georgina Long, said the average risk of recurrence after surgery for the cohort of advanced cancer patients was 50%.
“Although we have to look at the five- and ten-year figures, most of the risk of recidivism in this group occurs in the first two years,” said the 2024 Australian of the Year.
The 157 patients in the Phase 2b study had high-risk melanomas and either received the injection, developed by Moderna and Merck, along with the Keytruda immunotherapy, or Keytruda alone.
The vaccine and Keytruda reduced the risk of relapse to 25 percent, Long said. However, she warned that the results were a “signal”, with a larger study needed to better assess the true impact.
The 2.5-year relapse-free survival rate for the vaccine in combination with Keytruda was 74.8 percent, compared with 55.6 percent for Keytruda alone, delegates at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in in Chicago.
“We are encouraged by the latest results,” said Kyle Holen, Moderna's head of development, therapeutics and oncology. “These results reinforce our commitment to advancing this innovative treatment.”
Iain Foulkes, chief executive for research and innovation at Cancer Research UK, said the results marked another important milestone in “the exciting and developing landscape of cancer vaccine research”.
“After three years of follow-up, the data suggest that rates of cancer recurrence have not increased in people with advanced, high-risk melanoma“, he said. “The findings highlight the great promise of therapeutic cancer vaccines used in combination with powerful immunotherapies.”
Known as mRNA-4157 (V940), the vaccine is customized for each patient and tells their body to kill any remaining cancer cells and prevent the disease from returning.
A tumor sample is removed during the patient's surgery, followed by DNA sequencing and the use of artificial intelligence. The result is a personalized anticancer injection specific to the patient's tumor.
A second study presented at ASCO, led by the University of Vienna, found that cancer injections can significantly improve breast cancer patients' survival after surgery.
The study involved 400 patients with early stage breast cancer. Half of them received a vaccine to boost their immune system before the operation.
After seven years, 81 percent of patients who received the vaccine were still alive and free of breast cancer, compared with 65 percent of those who received standard care.
Lead author Dr. Christian Singer said: “This is the first significant and profound long-term survival benefit of a cancer vaccine in breast cancer patients reported to date.”
Cancer Research UK chief medical officer Prof Charles Swanton said the results of the melanoma study were “extremely impressive”.
“It's terribly interesting,” Swanton said. “The new vaccine approach is another piece of the puzzle that will hopefully allow more patients to be cured or fewer patients to suffer a relapse. Ultimately, it will contribute to continued improvements in survival rates for decades to come and beyond.”
Thousands of patients in England are being fast-tracked into breakthrough personalized cancer vaccine trials as part of a ground-breaking program to 'match” of the NHS, in a world first, to save lives.
