U.S.-Developed Vaccine 'Could Eliminate' Breast Cancer

[Bill Mattocks]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,593822,00.html?test=latestnews

If this turns out, it will be truly fantastic news!

U.S. scientists developed a vaccine that could prevent breast cancer and save the lives of millions of women, Sky News reported Monday.
The treatment was tested on mice and showed "overwhelmingly favorable results.”
Dr. Vincent Tuohy, who led the research at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said there was evidence in the initial tests that the vaccine could prevent cancers from forming and stop the growth of existing tumors.
"If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental," he said.
"We could eliminate breast cancer. We believe that this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines have prevented many childhood diseases."
Researchers injected the test vaccine into six mice that were specifically bred to be prone to breast cancer. None developed any signs of tumors.
A further six mice bred in the same way were injected with a placebo vaccine and all developed tumors.

 

[shesulsa]

Hmm. Sounds promising.

 

[CanuckMA]

I am Legend???

 

[CoryKS]

Still no cure for - oh, wait.

 

[Empty Hands]

While interesting, we shouldn't all get too excited. Many very effective treatments have been developed in mice, which don't work nearly so well or at all in humans. It's just the nature of the research and the different physiologies between mice and humans.

Plus, the mice are engineered to get cancer quickly after a discrete insult like a mutagen treatment or they have a strong genetic predisposition. People just don't get cancer that way, except in a small minority of cases. That makes treatments for people different in scope and effect.

Still cool, though, and potentially important.

 

[tellner]

True Sukerkin. On the other hand, if it does pan out we will have vaccines which protect against breast and cervical cancer. That's worth celebrating.

 

[Nomad]

While interesting, we shouldn't all get too excited. Many very effective treatments have been developed in mice, which don't work nearly so well or at all in humans. It's just the nature of the research and the different physiologies between mice and humans.

Plus, the mice are engineered to get cancer quickly after a discrete insult like a mutagen treatment or they have a strong genetic predisposition. People just don't get cancer that way, except in a small minority of cases. That makes treatments for people different in scope and effect.

Still cool, though, and potentially important.

Yep, we've cured cancer in thousands of mice through a wide variety of different drugs and vaccines. The trick is getting it to translate to a significant number of people with the disease.

One of the main problems with the mouse models is that they are infected with cancer cells of a very specific strain, which tends to be selected as a strain that gives the best readout from the class of drugs in question (this makes it easier to rank drug candidates). So the models are predisposed to react better to the treatment program than most "real" cancers will.

Of course, another major problem with many potential cancer treatments is development of resistance to the treatment, which is nearly inevitable with most drugs. The vaccine approach may remove this element, but it really depends on how the vaccine is supposed to work in this case.

I'd be very interested in finding out exactly what the vaccine was targeting. From the source article:

The drug makes the immune system attack a particular protein found in most breast cancer cells and in the mammary tissues of breastfeeding women.

This suggests to me that the cancer cells may be able to mutate into resistant forms; unlike the HPV vaccine for cervical cancer, which prevents infection by a viral agent that leads to the disease many years later.

While interesting work, this reads like a press release designed to garner resources and attention; they're a VERY long way from a viable treatment in people. Groups have been working on vaccines for many different cancer types for many years, and so far, none has made it to market. (Cervical cancer "vaccine" is a different beast, since it's actually preventing infection of the HPV viral species; it has no effect on cancer cells themselves.)