A personalized mRNA cancer vaccine combined with immunotherapy cut melanoma recurrence risk by 49%, according to a study published June 1 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and simultaneously presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.
The study, led by researchers at New York City-based NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center, tested the vaccine alongside immunotherapy in 107 patients who had undergone surgical melanoma removal. Researchers compared outcomes against a control group of 50 patients who received immunotherapy alone.
Here are five things to know from the study:
- After five years, 68.8% of patients in the combination arm remained cancer-free, compared with 49.1% in the pembrolizumab-only group.
- The combination also reduced the risk of distant metastasis by 59% and produced a 92.2% overall survival rate versus 71.3% for immunotherapy alone.
- Researchers found that combining the vaccine with immunotherapy reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49%.
- The mRNA vaccine is developed for each patient’s individual tumor to target tumor-specific proteins. The vaccine trains T cells to recognize and attack cancer cells that attempt to grow or spread after surgery.
- The vaccine is currently being tested in lung and other cancers.
Read the full study here.
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