A PIONEERING skin cancer vaccine being trialled on the NHS could halve the risk of death or relapse, according to a study. It is an early boost for the health service’s Cancer Vaccines Launch Pad that was announced last week. The infusion was tested on 157 patients after surgery for stage 3 or 4 melanoma skin cancer .
Moderna’s vaccine is the first of its kind to tailor the treatment to each individual patient using Covid jab-style mRNA technology . Experts led by New York University found it reduced the risk of cancer growing back or the patient dying by 49 per cent compared to standard treatment with the drug pembrolizumab . After two-and-a-half years, 75 per cent of those who had the vaccine plus the medication were still cancer-free, compared to 56 per cent on just the medication.
Trial chief Dr Jeffrey Weber said it showed a “durable and meaningful long-term survival benefit”. Speaking at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference, Cancer Research UK’s top doctor, Professor Charles Swanton, called the results “extremely impressive”. He said: “It’s promising and I fully expect and hope that we'll see data like this in solid tumours like bowel cancer and lung cancer.
“The new vaccine approach is another piece of the puzzle that will hopefully allow more patients to be cured or fewer patients to suffer relapse. “Ultimately it will contribute to survival rates improving continually over the next decades and more.” Melanoma is the less common.
