Skin cancer: There could soon be a vaccine against melanoma

2024-07-21 22:00:00

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American pharmaceutical company Moderna has developed a vaccine that could help prevent the development of skin cancer. How does this melanoma vaccine work?

The vaccine uses messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, which is also the technology used to develop some coronavirus vaccines. The vaccine will not be used to prevent skin cancer but will be used in conjunction with anti-cancer drugs to treat skin cancer after it develops. Moderna hopes the vaccine will be approved in 2025.

See also article: Melanoma: 5 signs to watch for closely

Moderna presented the latest findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago. The study was conducted on 157 patients with advanced skin cancer. Moderna and Merck are combining their cancer treatments: Moderna’s cancer vaccine and Merck’s drug Keytruda.

After about three years, people who received both treatments were 49% less likely to have their cancer return or die. Their cancer was also 62% less likely to metastasize, unlike people who received Keytruda alone. Overall, 75% of patients who received both treatments were alive and relapse-free after 2.5 years, compared with 56% of patients who received Keytruda alone.

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skin cancer vaccine

This skin cancer vaccine uses the same mRNA technology as the Covid-19 vaccine. It contains instructions for cells to make proteins specific to each person. Each patient treated receives a personalized vaccine, which takes six to eight weeks to develop. The vaccine is tailored to target the tumor’s specific mutations. “The results give us great confidence that the effects are real and long-lasting,” said Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna. “We think it is now abundantly clear that these strong results will transform cancer treatment for years to come. »

Another drug in the study, Keytruda, was approved in 2014, ushering in a new era of immunotherapy. It allows cells of the immune system, called T cells, to expose and fight tumor cells.

So the new technology combines a drug that exposes tumor cells (Merck’s Keytruda) with a vaccine that recognizes and destroys them (Moderna’s vaccine). Steven Hoge said this approach provides a very effective way to control the growth of malignant tumors. “We attack tumors with large numbers of T cells, and we target not just one mutation, but often 15 mutations, so the tumor doesn’t have a lot of places to hide,” says Steven Hoge. “It’s a very broad immune response.”

See also article: Immunotherapy for cancer: What you need to know

Vaccines for other types of cancer?

In later stages of the study, patients will be followed more closely and an additional 1,000 people will be added to the cohort. The companies are also testing the same vaccine and drug combination in patients with another type of skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, as well as kidney and bladder cancer.

If the current results are confirmed, they could mark an important milestone in immunotherapy treatments for cancer. This could mean that cancer patients only need one treatment to be completely cured of their cancer.

“If the survival curve persists for more than three years, we will effectively eliminate tumor cells,” explains Steven Hogg. “Even if there’s a cell somewhere that hides for a few years and then tries to form a new tumor, the immune system already has an image of it and knows what it looks like. Once the cell takes action, the immune system destroys it. This treatment The combination boosts the immune response and effectively eradicates the cancer. Once he’s gone, he’s gone for good.

See also article: Cancer: 7 Possible Causes or Risk Factors

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Last updated: July 2024

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