By working on mice, American researchers have succeeded in developing a vaccine that is 100% effective against melanoma and preventing any risk of relapse.
This could ultimately be a game-changer for people with skin cancer. By working on mice, American researchers have succeeded in developing a vaccine that is 100% effective and prevents any risk of relapse. The results of this exciting study were published on August 27 in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute and the University of Texas Medical Center sifted through 100,000 chemical compounds before finding a promising one: Diprovocim. They then tested it on mice with an aggressive form of melanoma which they separated into three groups of eight.
The first was injected with a treatment called anti-PD-L1 and an ovalbumin, a marker to train the immune system to recognize the tumor as an intruder. In the second, the researchers gave these injections as well as Diprovocim in order to stimulate the action of the immune system. Finally, they gave the third group of anti-PD-L1 and ovalbumin as well as a component that also activates the immune system, but different from Diprovocim. Results: after 54 days of testing, the first group of mice had a 0% survival rate and the third 25%, while the second, which had been treated with Diprovocim, on the contrary had a 100% chance of surviving.
Other pre-clinical trials in progress
“This co-therapy has given a complete answer in the treatment of melanoma,” enthuses one of the researchers, Dale Bogger, of the Scripps Research Institute. “Like a vaccine that can train the body to fight external pathogens, this vaccine trains the immune system to fight the tumor,” he says. This treatment works by stimulating the immune system and causing it to produce special cells to fight cancer, the study details. Another most encouraging observation: the positive effects of the vaccine remained even after the cancer had disappeared. Thus, when the researchers tried to reintroduce the tumor into the treated mice, “it did not take (…) because the animals were already vaccinated”, Bogger welcomes.
In France, skin melanomas represent 10% of skin cancers, 3.7% of all cancers and 1.2% of cancer deaths, all sexes combined. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, in 70 to 80% of cases, they appear on healthy skin.
Currently, Bogger and his colleagues are performing further pre-clinical trials to test the remedy they have developed, trying to establish how it would work when combined with other cancer treatments. If the results prove to be as conclusive as these, human trials may soon take place.
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