1 February 2024
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The number of people in hospital with flu and norovirus has hit a new high for this winter in England.
Latest NHS figures show 2,226 beds were taken up by flu patients each day last week, up 70% in a month.
But the number in hospital with Covid dipped slightly, and surveillance from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) showed rates were "broadly stable".
The NHS said the data showed it was still "in the thick of a challenging winter".
"Last week was evidence of why the NHS needed to grow its core bed numbers," said Prof Julian Redhead, NHS England's clinical director for urgent and emergency care.
The NHS said this month that it had met its target to increase the number of core hospital beds in England by 5,000 to 99,864.
But the latest data shows 96% of adult beds were still full last week, above the 85% level seen as safe by the World Health Organization.
NHS performance figures also showed that 34% of hospital patients in England arriving by ambulance in the week to 18 January had to wait more than 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E doctors.
That was up from 32% in the previous week, and the joint highest rate so far this winter.
It comes as a number of hospitals, including Shrewsbury, Winchester and Stoke have declared critical incidents recently because of "sustained pressure" on services, allowing them to request assistance from neighbouring NHS trusts.
The latest figures show the winter flu season appears to have come later this year with the number needing hospital treatment continuing to rise.
Common symptoms in adults include a sudden high temperature, aches, a dry cough and a sore throat. Some people also feel sick and report diarrhoea or stomach pain.
The symptoms are similar in children, but they can also suffer from ear pain and appear less active.
An average of 2,226 patients were in hospital each day last week with flu, including 84 in critical care beds, according to NHS England.
The total is up 41% from 1,582 the previous week and up 70% from the start of the year.
Another 688 hospital beds in England were filled last week by people with norovirus-like symptoms such as diarrhoea and sickness.
The virus - known as the winter vomiting bug - spreads easily through contaminated surfaces or contact with an infected person.
The number of people in hospital with Covid in England declined slightly, with an average of 3,701 beds occupied over the past week in large NHS trusts.
Of that number, just over a quarter - or 1,013 - were being treated "primarily" for the virus, with the majority admitted to hospital for another health problem.
Analysis of lateral flow tests indicated that about 2% - or one in every 50 people - would have tested positive for the virus in England and Scotland, compared to 2.3% in its previous report.
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A new mRNA cancer vaccine being trialled in the UK could herald the dawn of a new age of treatments for the disease, a scientist has suggested.
With development of the emerging vaccine technology having been turbocharged by the coronavirus pandemic, British patients are among a global cohort enlisted to trial the safety and efficacy of a vaccine experts hope could lead to a new generation of off-the-shelf cancer therapies.
The vaccine named mRNA-4359 and produced by Moderna is aimed at people with advanced melanoma, lung cancer and other solid tumour cancers.
While in some cases, vaccines are created specifically for each individual patient in laboratories using their own genetic information, the vaccine being trialled by British patients is among those targeted more broadly at specific types of cancer, which can be produced much more quickly and easily.
A man from Surrey with malignant melanoma skin cancer that is not responding to treatment was the first UK person to receive the vaccine at Hammersmith Hospital in late October as part of the trial arm run by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
I had a different immunotherapy, I had radiotherapy, the only thing I didnt have was chemotherapy. So, the options were either do nothing and wait, or get involved and do something, said the 81-year-old, who does not wish to be named.
Im extremely grateful to the hospitals and the individuals that are running these trials. Somehow we have to change the fact that one in every two people get cancer at some point, and we have to make the odds better.
During the trial, the vaccine will be tested alone and in combination with an existing drug pembrolizumab, which is an approved immunotherapy treatment, also known as Keytruda.
Scientists say 20 years of research into the field of cancer vaccines is finally starting to bear fruit
(PA)
Between 40 and 50 patients are being recruited across the globe for the trial, known as Mobilize, including in London, Spain, the US and Australia, although it could be expanded. Once in the body, the mRNA (a genetic material) teaches the immune system how cancer cells differ from healthy cells and mobilises it to destroy them.
Dr Kyle Holen, head of development, therapeutics and oncology at Moderna, said researchers hope the vaccine may be able to treat a range of cancers beyond those in the current trial.
We believe it could be effective in head-neck cancer, we believe it could be effective in bladder cancer, we believe it could be effective in kidney cancer, he said. But were starting out with the two that we think have the highest probability of being effective and that is melanoma and lung cancer.
Dr Holen suggested that two decades of work on cancer vaccines is finally starting to bear fruit, with the field having finally come to a point where were starting to see a real benefit in patients.
That was something that we saw with our first vaccine, where we were able to reduce the risk of recurrence by more than half in patients who had high-risk melanoma, he said. So were really excited about some of the early results and we hope that this brings in the dawn of a new age of cancer treatments.
Dr David Pinato, of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said that while immunotherapies remove the invisibility cloak that makes cancer hide within the body, the appeal of cancer vaccines is that you can make it much more specific you can basically give the immune system written instructions like an identikit of the tumour cells, which is more precise.
Progress in UK cancer survival is now slower than it has been for 50 years, a recent study suggested
(PA)
The advantage of mRNA technology is that it makes your own body produce those instructions, which then awakens the immune system, said Dr Pinato.
While personalised vaccines can also be very effective, they can take weeks to make and rely on a large tumour sample. There is also not enough data at present to say whether personalised vaccines are in fact better than broader cancer vaccines such as Modernas, he said.
The Moderna vaccine looks at specific traits across a number of tumours at what is the most frequent hit that you can target in cancer, said Dr Pinato. And so that has got incredible advantages in terms of the turnaround time, the fact you can make doses of the vaccines ahead of time even before meeting the patient. That is really the advantage.
The Mobilize trial is still recruiting patients, with Moderna expecting to report results at some point next year.
Dr Holen said the success of mRNA technology for Covid-19 vaccines has given an impetus to speed up development of cancer jabs using mRNA.
We started creating our cancer vaccine before the Covid epidemic occurred and we used some of that technology that we were creating for the cancer vaccine for the Covid vaccine, he said.
And whats really remarkable is now weve treated over a billion patients with our Covid vaccine, and that same technology is now being studied again in cancer patients. Because weve treated over a billion patients, we know a lot about the safety of the treatment and how well its tolerated around the world.
New vaccines could revolutionise the way Britain treats cancer, the health secretary said
(PA/Alamy)
So well have probably more safety information on our cancer vaccine than any other vaccine thats ever been created for cancer, and that makes us feel confident that were on the right track.
The side effects from Moderna cancer vaccines appear to be less than what would be expected with other immunotherapies, he added.
Weve had very mild side effects that are consistent with a Covid or a flu shot. Theres some pain in the arm, theres some fatigue, some low-grade fevers, that lasts a few days. And when you compare that to other immune therapies, its actually quite mild, said Dr Holen.
The UKs health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said: This vaccine has the potential to save even more lives while revolutionising the way in which we treat this terrible disease with therapies that are more effective and less toxic on the system.
However, experts are unsure why some patients respond well to vaccines and others have a poor response or none at all.
A new vaccine shows encouraging early results as a potential off-the-shelf treatment for certain patients withpancreaticorcolorectal cancer, according to a study co-led by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). The vaccine targets tumors with mutations (or changes) in the KRAS gene, a driving force in many cancers.
Thiscancer vaccineis different from another type of pancreatic cancer vaccine, which iscustom-made for each patient using messenger RNA (mRNA). Both are therapeutic vaccines given after surgery to prevent or delay the cancer from coming back in high-risk patients.
"Having a vaccine that's 'off-the-shelf' would make it easier, faster, and less expensive to treat a larger number of patients," saysmedical oncologist and pancreatic cancer specialist Eileen O'Reilly, MD, who helped lead the trial and is one of the corresponding authors in the study published inNature Medicine. "This gives hope for people with pancreatic and colorectal cancer who have been out of effective treatments when their disease returns."
Dr. O'Reilly is co-corresponding author of theNature Medicinestudy, along with Shubham Pant, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Christopher M. Haqq, MD, PhD, of Elicio Therapeutics.
The phase 1 trial involved 25 patients whose pancreatic or colorectal cancer had certain KRAS mutations and were at high risk of the cancer returning after surgery. The results demonstrated this vaccine is safe and appears to stimulate the patient's immune system to create cancer-fighting cells:
In patients whose immune system appeared to respond to the vaccine, the recurrence of cancer was delayed compared with patients who did not respond to the vaccine. That's the type of early clinical effect we can build on."
Eileen O'Reilly, MD,medical oncologist and pancreatic cancer specialist
A different approach to activating immune cells has been led bysurgical oncologist Vinod Balachandran, MD. He is investigating whether a personalized mRNA vaccine using proteins from a patient's pancreatic tumors will alert their immune system that the cancer cells are foreign. In this way, the mRNA vaccine trains the body to protect itself against cancer cells. This vaccine is now being tested in a phase 2research studyat MSK and other institutions.
Personalized vaccines -; while promising -; also have challenges. They take time to make and are costly. By contrast, an off-the-shelf vaccine manufactured in batches could be given to patients with minimal delay and would be cheaper to produce.
"These findings are exciting because they show we may have more than one way to activate immune cells to target pancreatic cancer," Dr. O'Reilly says.
Source:
Journal reference:
Pant, S., et al. (2024). Lymph-node-targeted, mKRAS-specific amphiphile vaccine in pancreatic and colorectal cancer: the phase 1 AMPLIFY-201 trial.Nature Medicine. doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02760-3.
Health Second Opinion
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Lauren Pelley, Amina Zafar - CBC News
Posted: February 03, 2024 Last Updated: February 03, 2024
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weeklyanalysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here .
After an explosion of measles cases in Europe, medical experts say it's just a "question of time" before outbreaks happen in Canada, thanks to high rates of global travel and low rates of vaccinations.
There were 42,200 measles cases across more than 40 European countries last year,the World Health Organization (WHO) announced this week a more than 40-fold increase from 2022, which saw fewer than 1,000 cases. In December, the organization said there hadbeen more than 20,000 hospitalizations and at least five deaths in the European region.
Globally, the situation is even grimmer, with a spike in infections in 2022 that included nine million known cases and 136,000 reported deaths, mostly among children.
The WHO said the rise in cases in Europe has accelerated in recent months, and the upward trend is expected to continue if urgent measures like vaccination efforts aren't taken to prevent further spread of this potentially deadly infection.
"It's not something that is mild," said Dr. Kate O'Brien, a Canadian pediatric infectious diseases specialist anddirector of the WHO's department of vaccines and immunization. "And it's not something to be taken lightly."
WATCH | Families encouraged to catch up on vaccinations:
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Canada eliminated measles back in 1998 through widespread vaccination programs.
Here, the vaccine is given to children as two doses of a combined shot that also protects against a combination of infections either measles, mumpsand rubella, or measles, mumps, rubellaand varicella.
The annual case count remains small only a dozen confirmed infections were reported country-wide in 2023 and most cases are now acquired through travel outside the country.
But clinicians say outbreaks are still a risk. Canada, like many other countries, hasn't hit the 95 per cent vaccination coverage required to prevent its spread.
"Measles is probably the most infectious human virus that is known, and as a result, in order to prevent measles infections, vaccination rates have to be really high in a community," said O'Brien.
"What's happened is, over the course of the pandemic, we've had a historic backsliding in the immunization rates around the world."
In Europe, the level of coverage with two doses of the measles vaccine dropped from 92 per cent in 2019 to 91 per cent by 2022, WHO data shows. Nearly two million infants also missed their measles vaccination in the first two years of the pandemic.
That means children are particularly at risk, clinicians say. Measles spreads easily through the air, leads to high hospitalization rates, and can cause a hacking cough, high feverand a prominent rash. In more serious cases, it leads to pneumonia, brain damage, and death in up to three out of every 1,000 children infected.
Infections can have wide-ranging and sometimes lifelong consequences, including blindness, deafness, or immune system impactsthat leave people vulnerable to other infections.
In the U.K., where there have been hundreds of cases in recent months, including 127 reported infections in January alone, health officials also point the finger at "falling" vaccination coverage. One in 10 childrenstart school in England without protection.
That's similar to Canada. Federal data from 2021 shows that 79 per cent of children had two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine by their seventh birthday, down from 83 per cent in 2019 and 87 per cent in 2017.
That suggests close to two in 10 children hadn't yet had their full set of shots far from Canada's target of 95 per cent coverage for that age group.
"Right now we're underneath the level of immunization that we need to prevent onward transmission in Canada," said pediatric infectious diseases specialist Dr. Charles Hui, who works with CHEO and the University of Ottawa.
Another study on population immunity in Ontario, published in 2019, found nearly eight per cent of blood samples had antibody levels below the threshold needed to ward off a measles infection. This suggested that immunity in some age groups may be waning "despite high vaccine coverage."
And clinicians warn the situation is getting worse.
During the pandemic, when doctors' offices were shut and public health units were tied up with COVID-19 screening and testing, routine immunization rates to protect infants and children from serious infections like measles plummeted across Canada.
"I think the answer is really trying to do everything we can to optimize vaccination delivery and catch up all those people who missed vaccinations during that pandemic, 'cause there are a lot of them," said Dr. JeffreyPernica, division head of infectious diseases at McMaster Children's Hospital.
"Most of these are people who would get their kids vaccinated if they had the time and means to do so."
But measles is exceptionally contagious.
"Normally we think that, as long as somebody doesn't cough in our face orshake our hand with their, you know, snotty hand, we will be OK, right?" Pernica said. "That issort of the rule for most respiratory viruses."
The contagiousnature of measles means that if an infectedperson walks into a store and another person who isn't vaccinated comes in two hours later, they can still catch it.
Research suggests that one person with measles can spread it to an average of 12 to 18 others.
"It will be really critical for governments to provide the resources for public health and to primary care, to really do all they can to catch up all of those who have missed vaccinations, and to encourage vaccinations among those who have not yet decided to receive them," he said.
The WHO's O'Brien also stressed the safety and effectiveness of measles vaccines, which are roughly 97 per cent effective. "Over the past 20 years, we estimate that over 56 million deaths have been averted as a result of measles vaccination around the world," she said.
Global travel remains a key concern for clinicians. In recent weeks, multiple Canadian public health alerts have been issued about possible travel-related exposures.
One confirmed case in a Saskatoon resident, who was infected through international travel, may have exposed others in various stores, a university campusand a hospital emergency room. Meanwhile, a confirmed case in the Windsor, Ont., area was linked to possible exposures at Toronto's bustling Pearson International Airport.
"The 12 cases last year from Canada were all imported cases and that is concerning in and of itself," Hui said. "But the concern would be if we import cases, and they come into contact with people who don't have immunity, then we have transmission within Canada."
He added it's likely "just a question of time" before cases linked to travel abroad end up sparking an outbreak.
Dr. Shelly Bolotin, director of the Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases, urged families heading out of the country for spring break to plan ahead, even if they're heading to places without outbreaks of measles or other vaccine-preventable infections.
"We can also get exposed at an airport," said Bolotin, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Normally, infants receive their first dose of measles vaccine at 12 months. But if achild is six months or older andgoing to a place where measles is circulating extensively, parents should discuss early immunization, she said.
Canada's federal government has an ongoing global measles notice for travellers, noting outbreaks are "occurring in every region of the world," leaving anyone unprotected at risk of being infected when travelling.
"That's why it's so important that every individual is protected against measles," said O'Brien."Because you don't know where that exposure is going to come from."
A global fight against measles faces setbacks from vaccine hesitancy, highlighting the need for increased adult vaccination to protect against outbreaks.
Measles, once controlled through widespread vaccination, is resurging due to misinformation and vaccine hesitancy. Efforts to increase adult MMR vaccination aim to restore herd immunity and prevent outbreaks.
Imagine a disease more infectious than any other known to medical science, that would kill 2.6 million young children every year and leave millions more with deafness and even brain damage. It sounds like something from pandemic horror fiction, but such a disease does exist measles.
Yet even measles was tamed across the world, at least for a while. In the aftermath of the successful eradication of smallpox in the 1970s, a similar global vaccination effort crushed measles mortality from 2.6 million in 1980 down to 73,000 by 2014.
Measles R number (the average number of people someone with the virus will go on to infect) of 15 or more puts even the most rampant variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the shade. Because of this infectiousness, its never been quite possible to achieve eradication, but many countries have been declared measles-free by the World Health Organization (WHO).
This achievement isnt necessarily permanent, however. The UK was deemed measles-free in 2016 but lost its status just two years later. And now there are rising case numbers across England, with significant outbreaks in London and the west Midlands.
The principal weapon in the war against measles has been the MMR vaccine, rolled out from 1971, which also provides immunity against mumps and rubella two other viruses with potentially nasty long-term effects.
MMRs global deployment was perhaps the greatest public health triumph of the last quarter of the 20th century, saving at least 56 million lives by WHO estimates.
Until, in 1998, a spanner was thrown in the works when spurious claims were made in The Lancet about a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. In 2010, the paper was retracted by the journal and its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, struck off from practicing medicine in the UK. But by then, the damage had been done.
Despite numerous studies confirming both the efficacy and safety of MMR, and failing to find any connection whatsoever with autism, many people began to have second thoughts about bringing their children in for vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy had set in, and measles began its insidious return, with global deaths climbing to 136,000 in 2022.
Despite the success of the MMR vaccine, the spread of misinformation regarding the vaccines safety has led to increased vaccine hesitancy and a resurgence of measles cases worldwide. Public health campaigns now emphasize the importance of adult vaccination to restore herd immunity and protect vulnerable populations.
Vaccine hesitancy, although nothing new, has become such a problem for public health services that it is the subject of intense research interest.
And it isnt just scare stories about autism. Studies have revealed the full complexity of the problem that there is no single factor that vaccine-hesitant people share, and therefore no obvious, easy public educational strategy to solve the problem.
Those who are less educated have a tendency to hesitancy but so do those who are highly educationally qualified. Likewise, those who hold deep religious convictions but also those who are militantly anti-religious, those who distrust the nanny state, those who distrust capitalism and particularly the pharmaceuticals industry, the poorest in society and the richest all these groups show elevated levels of vaccine hesitancy, yet often have little else in common at all.
In contrast, a middle-of-the-road, middle-income, reasonably educated person with weakly held religious beliefs is the most likely to be found in the queue at the vaccination station. We still do not really know why.
Vaccine hesitancy is now a problem for all vaccination programs, particularly measles, since its R of 15 or more means that any drop in vaccine coverage will result in a rapid increase in cases.
Where vaccine coverage becomes locally low, there can be local epidemics of considerable severity. Many countries have now lost their hard-earned measles-free status, in Europe including Albania, the Czech Republic, and Greece, as well as the UK.
But there is one thing we can all do to help and if you live in the UK, the NHS can help you do it.
Measles vaccines arent only for children.
Even if an adult has received MMR as a child or survived an attack of measles in the pre-vaccination days, their immunity can wane. Although the risk of a second attack bad enough to produce the symptoms seen in unprotected children is very small, adult MMR is still worthwhile as it goes beyond just protecting the person who receives the vaccination.
Bolstering the immunity of adults against these three viruses decreases the likelihood of an asymptomatic infection and prevents an adult from becoming an unwitting carrier. Adult MMR can help to restore some of the herd immunity that has been lost due to vaccine hesitancy.
Babies under a year of age cannot receive MMR, so they are the most vulnerable. Opting for adult MMR helps protect those babies from measles, and it helps prevent rubella in pregnant women and their babies.
And if youre a man of a certain age, opting for adult MMR also protects you personally against orchitis the dreaded inflammation of the testicles that is a symptom of mature mens mumps.
It would be a tragedy for the world to return to the days of uncontrolled measles epidemics due to sustained vaccine hesitancy over MMR. Lets get herd immunity against measles back up to where it should be by choosing adult MMR.
Written by Derek Gatherer, Lecturer, Biomedical and Life Sciences, Lancaster University.
Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation.
To the Editor:
Re Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Is Getting Worse, by Danielle Ofri (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 31):
Unfortunately, Dr. Ofris language here embodies the misguided approach that too many in the medical community have taken during and after the pandemic, severely eroding our patients trust in public health.
Reasonable people can disagree about the utility of Covid vaccine boosters in otherwise healthy adults. Indeed the World Health Organization is not recommending updated Covid boosters for otherwise healthy adults or children.
Thus, the almost 80 percent of American adults who chose not to get boosted this winter are not suffering from the heebie-jeebies. They are making a rational decision that is in line with that made by European health agencies that likewise dont support universal Covid boosters (a policy that, in my mind, is strongly supported by the current scientific evidence).
To suggest otherwise is harmful to the trust we physicians are trying to restore with our patients after the pandemic.
Shelli Farhadian Guilford, Conn. The writer is an assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at Yale School of Medicine.
To the Editor:
When I read this essay I thought of a traffic safety conference Id once attended. The subject was seatbelt use, and the common attitude discussed was that it wont happen to me and if I die, then it wont be my problem anymore. The speaker responded, But what if you survive in a permanently disabled state? The prospect of living with the adverse consequences of your behavior can raise the stakes in ones mind.
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Moderna's final research stages on their vaccine against the deadly CMV virus are underway. The vaccine has so far shown to be safe, triggering strong immune responses capable of combating the virus.
The vaccine, known as mRNA-1647, utilizes the same technology as Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines. It stimulates the body to produce antibodies that neutralize the virus, while also mobilizing white blood cells to eliminate it. These antibodies remain in the body as a lasting "immune memory," ready to fend off future invasions by the same virus.
The vaccine's initial phase focused on safety, beginning in 2019. Results indicated that it was safe and led to an increase in antibodies against the CMV virus, both in healthy individuals and pregnant women. A subsequent phase in 2020 involving 252 volunteers confirmed the vaccine's safety and efficacy in antibody production. The final phase, encompassing around 8,000 participants in the USA and Europe, is expected to conclude within months. Following this, approximately one more year will be needed for the FDA to finalize its approval process.
"CMV infection during pregnancy can significantly harm the fetus," said Prof. Tal Biron-Shental, chairwoman and director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Division at Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba, affiliated to Tel Aviv University.
"While most pregnant women who contract the virus do not transmit it to their fetus, there is no reliable way to determine this until signs of fetal damage appear on an ultrasound, sometimes only detectable after birth."
Affected fetuses may suffer from conditions including deafness, blindness, and extensive brain damage. "There are new treatment studies, but they are only applicable to women infected close to their pregnancy," Biron-Shental added. "Thus, prevention is the best strategy, making vaccination a key tool in preventing maternal illness and subsequent fetal harm. Given that Moderna's vaccine employs a technique similar to that used for the coronavirus vaccine, we are fully confident in its safety and hopeful for its proven efficacy soon."
What is CMV? The cytomegalovirus is one of the most prevalent viruses, with at least half of women expected to contract it at some point. For some, it causes no illness; for others, it can lead to mild flu-like symptoms or more severe conditions like the "kissing disease," similar to symptoms caused by the EBV virus. However, CMV can be much more dangerous for newborns.
How does fetal infection occur? Transmission to the newborn can happen through the placenta during pregnancy or during birth.
How to detect infection in pregnant women? Gynecologists direct suspected cases to undergo serology tests, measuring antibodies against CMV in the blood and their ratios. Suspicion of recent infection could lead to further testing for the virus's presence in the amniotic fluid.
What are the symptoms in newborns? While 85% of infected newborns show no symptoms, the remaining 15% may experience significant health issues, including organ enlargement, jaundice, and brain damage. CMV is the leading cause of congenital deafness.
Why can't antibiotics be used? Antibiotics are ineffective against viruses, including CMV. Recent developments in antiviral treatments show promise, especially when administered close to pregnancy.
Treatment for infected newborns involves antiviral medications such as Ganciclovir or Valganciclovir, which help reduce deafness risks. These treatments require close monitoring and frequent blood tests to manage potential side effects.
University of Washington Dr. Mary Lenora Disis has spent her career learning how the body fights cancer and working to develop a cure. She believes there could be a breast cancer vaccine within 10 years, according to UW Medicine.
Weve kind of come to a tipping point in our understanding of cancer vaccines, said Dr. Disis. With the body of work out there now, with the number of investigators out there now, with the data Im seeing published now, I think that is a reasonable goal to hit.
According to the American Cancer Society, around 20% of breast tumors have higher levels of a protein called HER2. Therefore the cancers are called HER2-positive breast cancers.
The vaccine Dr. Disis is working on targets HER2-positive breast cancers and is in Phase 2 of clinical trials.
Dr. Disis is also leading a trial of another vaccine aimed at protecting high-risk patients from developing breast cancer.
We developed a vaccine that targets five proteins that are very commonly upregulated in breast cancer stem cells, she said. Were testing it in patients who have triple-negative breast cancer because their breast cancers have a lot of stem cell-like features.
To learn more, watch the video below.
2024 Cox Media Group
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A new mRNA cancer vaccine made by pharmaceutical firm Moderna is being trialled in British patients.
The mRNA technology which was adapted to make Covid-19 jabs works by helping the body recognise and fight cancer cells.
Experts believe these vaccines may lead to a new generation of off-the-shelf cancer therapies.
Once in the body, the mRNA (a genetic material) teaches the immune system how cancer cells differ to healthy cells and mobilises it to destroy them.
Current immunotherapies are removing the invisibility cloak that makes cancer hide within the body, but this removal is very non-specific. The appeal of cancer vaccines is that you can make it much more specific - you can basically give the immune system written instructions
Dr David Pinato, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
mRNA cancer vaccines from firms like BioNTech, Merck and Moderna have been undergoing testing in small trials across the globe, with promising results.
In some cases, vaccines are created specifically for the patient in the lab using their own genetic information, while others are more general vaccines targeted at specific types of cancer.
In the latest development, British patients are trialling a vaccine called mRNA-4359 as part of an early-stage clinical trial that will initially look at safety as well as effectiveness.
The vaccine is aimed at people with advanced melanoma, lung cancer and other solid tumour cancers.
An 81-year-old man, who is taking part in the trial arm run by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, was the first UK person to receive the vaccine at Hammersmith Hospital in late October.
The man, from Surrey, who does not wish to be named, has malignant melanoma skin cancer which is not responding to treatment.
He said: I had a different immunotherapy, I had radiotherapy, the only thing I didnt have was chemotherapy. So, the options were either do nothing and wait, or get involved and do something.
Im extremely grateful to the hospitals and the individuals that are running these trials.
Somehow we have to change the fact that one in every two people get cancer at some point, and we have to make the odds better.
During the trial, the vaccine will be tested alone and in combination with an existing drug pembrolizumab, which is an approved immunotherapy treatment, also known as Keytruda.
Between 40 and 50 patients are being recruited across the globe for the trial, known as Mobilize, including in London, Spain, the US and Australia, although it could be expanded.
Dr Kyle Holen, head of development, therapeutics and oncology at Moderna, told the PA news agency the vaccine may be able to treat a range of cancers.
He said: We currently are studying both melanoma patients and lung cancer patients, but we believe that theres an opportunity for this vaccine in the Mobilize trial to treat many other cancers.
We believe it could be effective in head-neck cancer, we believe it could be effective in bladder cancer, we believe it could be effective in kidney cancer.
So theres a lot of cancers where we think this vaccine can be effective.
But were starting out with the two that we think have the highest probability of being effective and that is melanoma and lung cancer.
We all know how worrying a cancer diagnosis can be for people and their loved ones, but access to these ground-breaking trials alongside other innovations to diagnose and treat cancers earlier provides hope, and we expect to see thousands more patients taking part in trials of this kind over the next few years
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS national clinical director for cancer
Dr David Pinato, consultant medical oncologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and investigator of the UK arm of the trial, told PA that cancer vaccines differ to immunotherapy, which also help the immune system see and attack cancer.
He said: Current immunotherapies are removing the invisibility cloak that makes cancer hide within the body, but this removal is very non-specific.
The appeal of cancer vaccines is that you can make it much more specific you can basically give the immune system written instructions.
Its almost like an identikit of the tumour cells, which is more precise.
He said the advantage of mRNA technology is that it makes your own body produce those instructions.
He added: The fact your body is producing them awakens the immune system, it is even more active.
He said the vaccine being tested in the trial is an off-the-shelf vaccine rather than one that is tailored to each individual patient.
While personalised vaccines can be very effective, they can take weeks to make and rely on a large tumour sample.
There is also not enough data at present to say whether personalised vaccines are in fact better than broader cancer vaccines, he said.
The Moderna vaccine, he added, is looking at specific traits across a number of tumours.
Its basically looking at what is the most frequent hit that you can target in cancer?, he said.
And so that has got incredible advantages in terms of the turnaround time, the fact you can make doses of the vaccines ahead of time even before meeting the patient. That is really the advantage.
Dr Pinato said it is unclear why some patients benefit from immunotherapy and cancer vaccines while others do not.
My educated guess, knowing what I know about cancer immunotherapy, is that the interaction between the tumour and the immune system is very complex, he said.
For example, some types of lung cancer respond much better than others.
It could be that maybe some patients cannot use those vaccines well, so the immune system is still so low it wouldnt benefit, even with precise instructions, he added.
I think, having developed a number of drugs for cancer, there is never really going to be one that does everything.
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS national clinical director for cancer, said the NHS is at the vanguard of trials of cancer vaccines.
He added: We all know how worrying a cancer diagnosis can be for people and their loved ones, but access to these ground-breaking trials alongside other innovations to diagnose and treat cancers earlier provides hope, and we expect to see thousands more patients taking part in trials of this kind over the next few years.
Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said: This vaccine has the potential to save even more lives while revolutionising the way in which we treat this terrible disease with therapies that are more effective and less toxic on the system.
The Mobilize trial is expected to report its findings next year. (Image: Getty)
An experimental new vaccine from Moderna could help beat cancer, experts have revealed.
The creators of the new jab were one of the companies responsible for Covid vaccines during the pandemic.
In October, an 81-year-old man who has incurable skin cancer was the first person to be jabbed with the potential miracle injection.
He said of the treatment: "Taking part gives a sense of contributing to something which can help a lot of people."
Imperial College NHS Trust's Dr David Pinato and his team are running tests to find out if the jab is safe enough for a three-year worldwide trial.
He said: "Research is in the early stages . . . but it is moving us closer to therapies that are potentially less toxic and more precise."
Dr Pinato is hopeful the treatment will be able to treat skin and lung cancers first, before treating other cancers like bowel and breast.
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS cancer director, said of the new treatment: "Cancer vaccines could be revolutionary.
"We expect to see thousands more patients taking part in trials of this kind over the next few years."
Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, added: "This vaccine has the potential to save lives while revolutionising the way we treat this terrible disease with therapies that are more effective and less toxic."
Meanwhile, Modernas Dr Kyle Holen said: "People have been working on cancer vaccines for more than 20 years and the field has finally come to a point where were starting to see a real benefit in patients.
"That was something that we saw with our first vaccine, where we were able to reduce the risk of recurrence by more than half in patients who had high-risk melanoma.
"So were really excited about some of the early results and we hope that this brings in the dawn of a new age of cancer treatments."
The vaccine is part of a trial called Mobilize.
