A new source of hope for those fighting lung cancer. In the United Kingdom, last Tuesday, a patient was administered the first dose of the new drug designed to knock out the most common form of this disease – unfortunately still fatal – and prevent its recurrence. So far, the first vaccine in the world against lung cancer is in its first phase of clinical trials. The potentially life-saving drug thanks to the messenger RNA technique – the same used for the one for Covid-19 – was produced by the company BioNTech and is currently called with the acronym BNT116. It will soon be administered to other patients to defeat what is still the main cause of cancer death globally, with an estimated 1.8 million deaths each year and a survival rate that remains among the lowest.
Patient zero, we were saying. His name is Janusz Racz, he is a 67-year-old man who lives in London and who received the diagnosis last May, immediately starting the cycle of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Then the possibility of entering the experimental treatment emerged, and on Tuesday 20 August he underwent the first 6 consecutive injections, 5 minutes apart, at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility. Each injection contained different strands of RNA. He will receive the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks, and then every three weeks for 54 weeks. He is also a scientist, but specialized in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and it is this propensity for innovation that has pushed him to explore the new frontiers of medicine. Racz recalled how lucky he was to be the first to be able to benefit from the medicine: “It would be very advantageous for me, because it is a new methodology not available to other patients that can help me get rid of cancer”. He has an optimistic view on the future of the mRNA vaccine: “I can be part of the group that can provide a proof of concept for this new methodology, and the faster it is implemented around the world, the more people will be saved.”
How does the vaccine work scientifically? First of all, it was created to treat non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease. Unlike chemotherapy, the drug mainly aims to stimulate the response of diseased cells and leave healthy cells unchanged, with enormous differences compared to chemotherapy that “kills” them all indiscriminately, and this would be possible thanks to a precise marker called NSCLC. The first was Racz, but there will be another 130 patients involved in the first phase of the trial and who will be administered the first dose of the vaccine. The group includes both patients in the early stages, those with advanced disease or cancer that has returned after an initial surgical removal. There is a lot of hope, and it also comes from insiders like Siow Ming Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at University College London who is leading the trial: “It is simple to administer and you can select specific antigens in the tumor cell, and then hit them” – highlighted the scientist, who then concluded: “This technology represents the next great phase in cancer treatment”.
#Lung #cancer #vaccine #tested #Tempo
2024-08-24 00:19:59
