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Cancer research and the development of new treatments encompasses many areas within the scientific and health field. It is common to see news, especially in recent years, about universal or polyvalent vaccines capable of curing cancer. However this is not entirely true.
Cancer is not a single disease
One of the big mistakes when talking about cancer is to take it as a single disease, and nothing could be further from the truth. Cancer is a type of disease that actually encompasses many dozens of subclasses of cancer , depending on the characteristics it presents.
An example would be as if we talked about all viral diseases as if it were a single disease. We find it completely absurd to put in the same category diseases such as measles , herpes , Ebola, HIV , a simple cold and COVID-19 itself. They are not all the same ; they cause very different symptoms and require specialized treatment, despite the fact that they are all caused by viruses.
Something similar happens with cancer. Melanoma is not the same as acute myeloid leukemia or small cell lung cancer. All of them have in common a failure to control cell growth , but the symptoms, affected organs, treatment or prognosis are very different.
For these reasons, when talking about this disease in general terms, both in its study and in the search for treatments, it is important to remember that we must treat each type of cancer as an independent disease . Especially when we are referring to a new vaccine or cancer therapy.
New treatment for a type of rectal cancer
A new study has been published that has presented a new treatment that has proven to be successful in twelve patients suffering from a specific type of rectal adenocarcinoma (a type of rectal cancer) in an advanced stage.
In this phase 2 study, they applied a dose every three weeks for six months of dostarlimab: an antibody designed specifically against a molecule that controls cell proliferation that does not work correctly. Finally , patients would receive the standard treatment of chemotherapy and surgery to remove the tumor.
The results published in the prestigious scientific magazine New England Journal of Medicine revealed that all the patients responded successfully without presenting tumor remnants in the following six months after finishing the treatment. None of the twelve patients required surgery or chemotherapy , as the cancer did not show up on any tests, in some cases up to 25 months later.
Finally, the side effects reported in the study by all the patients were classified as mild and moderate . Although the type of rectal cancer presented by these patients is not the majority, this study presents a great advance in this field and hope for those who suffer from it.
A universal cancer vaccine?
Despite what is often seen in the media and networks, there is no universal vaccine against cancer . However, in recent years efforts have been focused on designing mechanisms to empower our immune system to kill tumors and cancer cells.
To achieve this, different strategies have been developed, such as immunotherapies that are responsible for “marking” tumors with neon signs so that immune cells can destroy them, just as they do with viruses and bacteria.
Even so, this strategy must be personalized for each type of cancer and even for each person, because as we have already mentioned, each cancer is like a single disease. The effectiveness of immunotherapy is only achieved by loading it with the appropriate “markers” and not marking healthy cells.
Another recent study published in Nature has presented very promising results of a new vaccine to treat solid tumors that are resistant to other types of therapies. This vaccine focuses on two molecules (MICA and MICB) that are usually present in solid tumors.
These MICA/B molecules are neon lights that signal to the cells of the immune system that there is a danger that they must eliminate. However, tumors have camouflage mechanisms and one of them is to turn off these neon lights and become invisible.
The new treatment presented in this study restores neon light in tumors and coordinates an attack by the T cells and NK ( natural killer ) cells of the immune system. By making them visible , they can be destroyed .
The study showed that this vaccine is successful in killing resistant tumors, even when they have progressed to metastases (cancer cells that spread throughout the rest of the body and settle in other organs). However, the results were obtained in animal models and need to be confirmed in humans.
Each rung adds up to a ladder
Although the idea of a universal cancer vaccine is more of a myth than a reality, each small step in the different types of cancer represents a great advance in developing increasingly effective strategies.
Each of these studies increases knowledge about possible mechanisms to fight cancer, and is cause for celebration, as it all adds up in the right direction.
References:
Badrinath et al. 2022. A vaccine targeting resistant tumours by dual T cell plus NK cell attack. Nature. Doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04772-4
Cercek et al. 2022. PD-1 Blockade in Mismatch Repair–Deficient, Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer. N Engl J Med. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2201445
