A new pancreatic cancer vaccine has appeared to slow disease progression and increase survival for patients in an early trial.
Pancreatic cancer has some of the poorest survival rates due to it often only being detected in an advanced stage.
Many see their cancers not responding to treatment or continuing to spread despite undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The new vaccine, which has shown promise in an early trial involving 20 pancreatic cancer patients and five with bowel cancer, has been developed to help the body’s immune system find and attack cancer cells.
Both pancreatic and bowel cancers carry a mutation in a gene called KRAS, which plays a key role in tumour growth.
The jab was developed to recognise and attack KRAS-mutant cancer cells, as well as improve vaccine delivery to the lymph nodes, which filter out foreign substances like cancer cells and infections, in the body.
In the phase 1 trial for the jab, 68% of the 25 patients had developed a strong immune response to the mutant KRAS tumour proteins after about 20 months.
However, some patients responded more favourably than others, with experts saying more research was needed to establish the cause for the differing reactions.
Those with the strongest immune response both lived longer and remained cancer-free for longer than those with a weaker response.
Pancreatic cancer patients who received the vaccine survived about two years and five months after getting the ELI-002 2P jab, according to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.
At present, just three in 10 people diagnosed with the condition survive for a year, so the early trial results give fresh hope to patients.
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The vaccine does not need to be personalised and can therefore be manufactured in bulk to be administered more rapidly.
Researchers have already started testing the efficacy of the jab among a larger group of pancreatic and bowel cancer patients.
Study lead Dr Zev Wainberg from the University of California, in the US city of Los Angeles, called the findings “remarkable” and said the second phase of the trial was already under way.
