Clinical trial into potential cancer vaccine 'shows early promising results'

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A clinical trial into a potential cancer vaccine is showing early ‘hopeful’ results, according to experts. The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool is looking into the effectiveness of the so-called TG4050 jab in patients with head and neck cancers.

All of the patients selected with the trial are administered with the vaccine following conventional treatment for their condition, Sky News has reported.

The vaccine, which is produced by French biotechnology company Transgene, is personalised from the individual patients’ own DNA, similar to the technology used in jabs made available during the Covid pandemic. READ MORE: Scots mum thought brain tumour symptoms were hay fever before medics discover golf ball sized mass READ MORE: Andy Goram's son says dad was 'joking till the end' in emotional tribute to Rangers legend Genetically modified cells from the virus are then injected into the body in order to train the immune system to fight off cancer cells at an early stage to prevent lumps from forming.It found that none of the first eight patients given the vaccine have relapsed, even after several months.

The cancer was said to have returned in two of eight patients who weren’t given the vaccine. Similar trials of the vaccine in France and the US are said to be showing similar promising results in patients with ovarian cancer.The data is currently too small for experts to make a firm statistical conclusion on the vaccine’s effectiveness.However, Professor Christian Ottensemeier a consultant medical oncologist and director of clinical research at the cancer centre, said that he was “cautiously optimistic.”He told Sky News: “I am really hopeful, yes.