Dr. Saranya Chumsri, an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic, said the vaccine is “supposed to stimulate a patient’s own immune response so that the immune cells like t-cells would go in and attack the cancer.”
In March, Florida resident Lee Mercker was diagnosed with the early stages of “DCIS stage zero” breast cancer, which meant the disease had not spread.
“I’m an exercise fanatic, I eat right. But it just can knock on anybody’s door,” said Mercker, who was the first person to participate in the clinical trial.
She said doctors performed a series of checks before administering the vaccine during the 12-week trial at the clinic in Jacksonville.
“They always took your blood, you had a physical, they’d make your shot right there on the spot for you,” she said. “It was three shots, all in a row, alternating arms, four shots, two weeks apart.”
Chumsri stated the vaccine is designed to mirror other routine shots. “It’s supposed to be just off the shelf, kind of similar to when you get the flu shot or pneumonia shot,” the oncologist noted.
She told First Coast News she had "DCIS stage zero" breast cancer, meaning the cancer cells had not yet spread. She was left with three options -- have a lumpectomy where the cancer cells are removed, undergo a mastectomy where the breasts are removed, or join a clinical trial for a potentially life-saving vaccine to kill the cells and prevent them from coming back.
"I signed on the dotted line that day," Mercker said of the 12-week trial at the clinic's Jacksonville campus.
"It's supposed to stimulate a patient's own immune response so that the immune cells like t-cells would go in and attack the cancer," said Dr. Saranya Chumsri, an oncologist at the world-renowned medical center.
Mercker said the process entailed a series of shots and tests.
"They always took your blood, you had a physical, they'd make your shot right there on the spot for you," Mercker said. "It was three shots, all in a row, alternating arms, four shots, two weeks apart."
"It's supposed to be just off the shelf, kind of similar to when you get the flu shot or pneumonia shot," Chumsri said.
She was still required to get a mastectomy to make sure everything was removed properly. Researchers can view the breast tissue to access how the vaccine works.
The treatment is being used on another patient who is reportedly showing positive results.
Chumsri said clinical trials for patients with other stages of cancer are also showing good results.
However, as a part of the trial, Mercker was required to have a mastectomy.
“That is the only way we know that everything was removed properly,” Chumsri said.
In April, researchers began working on another cancer vaccine that is said to harness the power of the immune system to destroy cancer cells by injecting the medicine directly into the tumor.
“We’re injecting two immune stimulants right into one single tumor,” said Dr. Joshua Brody, director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. “We inject one tumor and we see all of the other tumors just melt away.”
Reports said that eight out of eleven lymphoma patients who participated in a clinical trial of the vaccine experienced partial or complete destruction of the tumor.
EmoticonEmoticon