Cancer vaccine is about to come out, can it really remove cancer cells with one shot? see what the doctor has to say
According to media reports, the founder of BioNTech in Germany recently stated in an interview that a cancer vaccine can be developed using COVID-19 vaccine technology, and predicted that a cancer vaccine may be available before 2030!
As soon as the topic came out, it quickly became a hot search, causing a heated discussion among the majority of netizens. Currently, cancer is one of the important diseases threatening human health. The latest data from the National Cancer Center shows that in 2020, there will be 19.29 million new cancer patients in the world, of which 4.57 million will be in China, accounting for 23.7% of the global total. Since China ranks first in the world in terms of population, the number of new cancer cases is much higher than that of others. nation. If a vaccine can eliminate cancer, it is undoubtedly a great discovery for the benefit of mankind and society. So, is this really the case?
What exactly is a cancer vaccine?
Relevant researchers explained that the cancer vaccine mentioned here is different from other vaccines. Cancer vaccines have no preventive function and can only be used for treatment. The principle is that some cancer patients often have genetic mutations. Vaccines can induce and activate immune responses, helping the immune system in the body to identify cells with genetic mutations and kill cancer cells through immune responses. So can cancer vaccines actually treat cancer?
Cancer vaccine is a neoantigen vaccine, mainly by stimulating the body's active immunity. The vaccine is based on gene sequencing, and individualized "advanced customized" vaccines are developed for each cancer patient with different mutation sites and numbers. Its outstanding feature is that it can "tailor-made" the corresponding vaccine for each patient's tumor tissue mutation antigen, ensuring that each patient has its own vaccine, and ultimately allowing patients to benefit long-term through individualized treatment.
At present, a number of individualized neoantigen vaccine clinical trials have been carried out, including lung cancer, bladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, melanoma, glioma and more than 40 tumors. Cancer vaccines have been proven to be more effective in combination with chemotherapy/radiotherapy, targeted drugs, immune checkpoint inhibitors, cell stimulating factors and other treatments.
Can cancer vaccines really "kill cancer cells with one shot"?
In fact, many people have misunderstood the cancer vaccine after hearing this news . The cancer vaccine mentioned in this news is a "therapeutic vaccine" , not a "preventive vaccine" such as hepatitis B, polio, and COVID-19 virus vaccines.
Although major breakthroughs have been made in the research of cancer vaccines, there are still many challenges in their widespread application in tumor clinical treatment. Cancer vaccines are not "magic medicine", and the wish of "one shot to remove cancer cells" imagined by the majority of netizens is still difficult to achieve. Cancer vaccines are biological products and need to be used in combination with other antitumor drugs such as chemotherapy/radiotherapy, targeted drugs, etc., to improve the effectiveness of the vaccine. One shot to cure cancer is still only an ideal, and the real realization of the road is long and long, let us look forward to it together!
references:
[1] News from this journal. The National Cancer Center releases the latest national cancer statistics [J]. Shanghai Nursing, 2022, 22(04): 72.
[2] Hu Tiantian, Qiu Xudan, Zhang Yan, Li Kaigang, Du Juan. Research progress of individualized cancer vaccine therapy based on tumor neoantigens [J]. Modern Oncology, 2021, 29(19): 3495-3499.
About the author: Master of Pharmacology from Sun Yat-Sen University, currently serves as the deputy chief pharmacist of a tertiary hospital, a clinical pharmacist of neurology, and a member of the Science Popularization Committee of Guangdong Pharmaceutical Association. He was awarded the "Myocardial Infarction Science Ambassador" certificate issued by the China Cardiovascular Health Alliance.