Cancer vaccines are about to come out, can it really kill cancer cells with one shot? see what the doctor said
According to media reports, the founder of BioNTech in Germany said in an interview recently that cancer vaccines can be developed using COVID-19 vaccine technology, and predicted that cancer vaccines may come out before 2030!
As soon as the topic came out, it quickly appeared on the hot search, which aroused heated discussions among netizens. At present, 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 worldwide, of which 4.57 million are in China, accounting for 23.7% of the global total. Since China's population ranks first in the world, the number of new cancer patients is much higher than other countries. nation. If cancer can be eradicated with a single shot of vaccine, it will undoubtedly be a great discovery that benefits mankind and society. So, is this really the case?
What exactly are cancer vaccines?
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 gene mutations. Vaccines can induce and activate immune responses, help the body's immune system to recognize genetically mutated cells, and kill cancer cells through immune responses. So can cancer vaccines really cure cancer?
Cancer vaccine is a neoantigen vaccine, mainly by stimulating the body's active immunity. The vaccine is based on gene sequencing, and an individualized "advanced customization" vaccine is formulated for each cancer patient's 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, which can ensure that each patient has his own exclusive vaccine, and finally allow patients to benefit from individualized treatment for a long time.
At present, multiple individualized neoantigen vaccine clinical trials have been carried out, including more than 40 tumors such as lung cancer, bladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, melanoma, and glioma. Cancer vaccines have been proven to be effective in combination with other treatments such as chemotherapy/radiotherapy, targeted drugs, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and cell stimulators.
Can cancer vaccines really "kill cancer cells with one shot"?
In fact, many people misunderstood cancer vaccines after hearing the 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 great breakthroughs have been made in the research of cancer vaccines, there are still many challenges to be widely used in clinical tumor treatment. Cancer vaccines are not "miracle medicines", and the wish of "killing cancer cells with one shot" imagined by netizens is still difficult to realize. Cancer vaccines are biological products and need to be used in combination with other anti-tumor drugs such as chemotherapy/radiotherapy and targeted drugs to improve the effectiveness of the vaccine. It is only an ideal to cure cancer with one injection, and it will take a long time to realize it. Let us look forward to it together!
references:
[1] News from our journal. The National Cancer Center released 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, Sun Yat-Sen University, currently the deputy chief pharmacist of a tertiary hospital, clinical pharmacist of neurology department, member of Science Popularization Committee of Guangdong Pharmaceutical Association. He was awarded the certificate of "Myocardial Infarction Science Popularization Ambassador" issued by China Cardiovascular Health Alliance.