Can a new vaccine end breast cancer?

[n2doc]

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic have developed a promising vaccine that attacks breast tumors. Time to break out the pink champagne?
POSTED ON JUNE 1, 2010, AT 2:55 PM

Dr. Vincent Tuohy, an immunologist at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic, says breast cancer is "a completely preventable disease" that, like polio, can be virtually wiped out by his experimental vaccine. How does this vaccine, described in the journal Nature Medicine, prevent cancer, and is there a chance it could really spell an end to one of the leading causes of death in women? (Watch a Fox report about the breast cancer vaccine)

Why are researchers optimistic about the vaccine?
The results in the test on lab mice were very promising. Tuohy and his colleagues used 12 mice genetically altered to be predisposed toward breast cancer; they injected six with the vaccine, which contains an antigen against a protein found only in breast tumors and lactating women, and six with a dummy vaccine. None of the mice with the antigen developed tumors, while all of the other mice did. The live vaccine also showed promise in shrinking existing tumors. "If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental," Tuohy says. "We could eliminate breast cancer."

What's the bad news?
Just because the vaccine works in mice doesn't mean it will work in humans. Human trials could begin as early as next year, but even if the tests go well, it will probably be at least a decade before the breast-cancer vaccine is approved for the general public. Also, since the vaccine targets cells used in lactation, women who received the vaccine would be unable to breast-feed.


more

http://theweek.com/article/index/203565/can-a-new-vaccine-end-breast-cancer

[xchrom]

1. Recommend -- here's to a possible New Day. Nt

[Deep13]

2. Yeah, a dozen mice don't prove much of anything.

It will require extensive testing before it will be ready for clinical use.

[TwilightGardener]

3. I wonder if it will work in older women, who may already have some

pre-cancerous cells lurking in there that just haven't developed. I'm hopeful this will pan out, but it never seems to.

[kestrel91316]

4. Therapeutic vaccine has been a virtual miracle in the treatment of melanoma.

So this could be exceptionally good news.

[TwilightGardener]

5. I didn't know the melanoma vaccine was in use--that is good news.

[kestrel91316]

7. Weird people like me were discovered in the 1970's to have

circulating antibodies against malignant melanoma. We are the people with halo nevi.

I always did wonder what that discovery would lead to.......

[Tumbulu]

10. what is halo nevi?

and is the melanoma vaccine in use yet?

[kestrel91316]

12. That's the plural of halo nevus. Let me google......

Here ya go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_nevus

I have had 4 of them. First one was at age 11. One of the moles was so big to start that it never did get much smaller, let alone disappear. But the other three moles eventually went away completely, the halo gets bigger, the mole shrinks, and voila! Then the halo disappears, too.

[Tumbulu]

13. I'm sorry, I should have googled it myself

I guess I am more tired than I realize.

[HuckleB]

6. K & R.

[xchrom]

8. Kick

[EvolveOrConvolve]

9. "If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental,"

That's a big "if". I'm hopeful, but will wait for the results of actual human studies.

[Tumbulu]

11. I hope that it can work out for humans

On a totally different topic I had a bunch of cases of flystrike on my sheep and I read that they are close to having a vaccine against flystrike- wow now that would be fabulous. Flystrike is when flies lay their eggs on soiled or wet wool and the larvae hatch and bore into the body of the sheep in clusters. it is a horror and I am amazed that they mostly survive as long as it is caught and treated.