A new personalised vaccine, given in combination with a drug, has prevented skin cancer from returning in patients during a trial, marking a potentially watershed moment in cancer treatment.

🇬🇭 Here's What Happened

The vaccine, developed by drug companies Merck and Moderna, was given to patients with high-risk melanoma, a type of skin cancer, after they had surgery.

Early results show that this new jab extended the time these patients were cancer-free, but it's unclear for how long, according to an announcement by the two firms.

Cancer experts say this is a breakthrough but emphasise caution, as the full results have not been released or peer-reviewed, meaning independent experts have not yet examined and checked the trial findings.

📌 Key Details

And even after the trial process has finished, the treatment would still need to be approved by regulators and then go through another approval process before it was made available on the NHS.

The vaccine, called Intismeran, was given in combination with Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug already used in cancer treatment.

Compared with taking Keytruda on its own, the companies said taking the drug and vaccine together significantly increased the time patients remained cancer-free and reduced the risk of the disease spreading to other organs.

The phase three trial involved more than 1,000 patients who had high-risk stage two, three or four melanoma - meaning they ranged from having large tumours in a specific area to cancers which had already spread to other parts of the body.

Merck and Moderna are calling this a personalised vaccine, meaning it works by targeting an individual patient's tumour.

In order to create this new jab, scientists used mRNA technology - which was used for some Covid-19 vaccines - to target specific mutations within the cancer cells by surgically removing a small part of a patient's tumour and then sequencing its DNA.

📰 Source: Joy Online Ghana