DETROIT – Vaccines have saved countless people from deadly infections by training our own immune system to fight unwelcome invaders.
Now they are being used to fight a different type of invader -- cancer.
The idea of a vaccine to harness a person’s own immune system to fight cancer has been in the works for decades -- unfortunately progress has been slow because “cancer” isn’t only one disease -- but there have been advancements falling in distinct categories.
“There are, in general, three types of cancer vaccines, there are prevention vaccines, therapeutic or treatment related vaccines, and then vaccines aimed at preventing cancer recurrence,” said Dr. Amy Weise, a medical oncologist at Henry Ford Health. “The cancer prevention vaccines are more like standard vaccines against a virus.”
The most notable examples are the HPV and hepatitis b vaccines -- infection with both of these viruses is associated with an increased risk of cancer.
Next are the therapeutic or treatment vaccines
“The goal of that type vaccine is to try and get the patients immune system to attack the cancer itself,” Weise said.
These vaccines are custom made in a lab using a sample of the patients actual tumor and the same MRNA technology used to make the first COVID vaccines. Right now, this process takes weeks to months, but doctor Weise sees the technology evolving
“In the future, hopefully every hospital will be able to take the patients tumor run the sequence and do it within days,” Weise said.
Once you are treated for cancer there’s always a concern about recurrence or cells that may have escaped to other parts of the body. That’s where preventative vaccines come in.
“These types of vaccines are aimed at stimulating the immune system to go after those microscopic cells that somewhere down the road come back and be a more advanced stage 4 situation,” Weise said.
You might wonder if one day there might be a “generic’ vaccine against breast cancer or lung cancer? Weise doesn’t think that’s very likely because every cancer is really very unique in terms of how the immune system needs to be trained to attack it. These therapies are incredibly personalized to each individual and that is really the state of the art -- treatment that is unique to every individual’s situation.