A young British woman with advanced cervical cancer has become one of the first patients to trial a new vaccine designed to stimulate the immune system to destroy tumors.
According to Mail Online, Kelly Potter, 35, was diagnosed in July 2015 with advanced cervical cancer already at stage four. Miss Potter from Beckenham was among the first to be enrolled in a cancer vaccine trial involving 30 volunteers. She has received her first injection on Feb. 9 and will have seven more.
The immunotherapy trial will run over the next two years and it will examine whether a vaccine is effective in encouraging the body's immune system to destroy cancer cells. The vaccine is designed for terminal cancer, solid tumors and patients who have failed on previous types of cancer treatment. According to the Independent, the vaccine is being tested in London and Guildford.
The cancer research community has great hopes for immunotherapy. Experts in the United States announced in February significant results in early trials involving patients with terminal blood cancer. Cancer researchers believe that irrespective of their type of cancer, all patients with solid tumors can benefit from immunotherapy.
The vaccine being tested in the United Kingdom has been designed by medical researchers with the aim to encourage the immune system to react against that part of the cancer cell that makes it to continuously replicate. The patients participating in the trial will also be prescribed with a chemotherapy drug at low doses. Scientists explained that the drug is designed to "lift the brakes" on the immune system in order to allow it to attack the body's own cancer cells.
Because the disease has unfortunately spread to other sites in her body, Potter was eligible for the trial at Guy's Hospital in London. She declared that her life changed for the better since she was elected to be part of the trial and for her was exciting to be part of "something that could be ground breaking".
