Experimental vaccine may prevent recurrence of cancer

Researchers recently discovered that an experimental cancer vaccine offers “a promising approach” to preventing pancreatic and colorectal cancers from coming back after treatment.

In a recent press release, UCLA Health announced that in a phase 1 clinical trial, which was backed by the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, researchers tested a cancer vaccine that can “trigger powerful and lasting immune responses and may help prevent or delay cancer recurrence in high-risk patients whose tumors are driven by KRAS mutations.” The vaccine was tested on 25 patients who had received treatment for colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer.

According to the UCLA Health press release, the patients who participated in the study completed surgery to have their tumors removed and showed “signs of minimal residual disease,” which indicated that they had a high risk of cancer recurrence.

The UCLA Health press release noted that 21 of the 25 patients generated “KRAS-specific T cells,” which suggests a stronger immune response than typical cancer patients. Cancer patients with higher T-cell responses exhibited “longer relapse-free survival” compared to patients with lower T-cell responses. Additionally, the biomarkers for the cancer of three pancreatic cancer and three colorectal patients who received the vaccine appeared to be completely removed, according to UCLA Health.

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Researchers explained that a majority of the patients who displayed the strongest immune response remained free of cancer almost 20 months after receiving the cancer vaccine.

“This is an exciting advance for patients with KRAS-driven cancers, particularly pancreatic cancer, where recurrence after standard treatment is almost a given and effective therapies are limited,” Zez Wainberg, M.D., a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the author of the recent study, said. “We observed that patients who developed strong immune responses to the vaccine remained disease-free and survived for much longer than expected.”

The recent UCLA Health press release noted that 67% of the patients tested for the cancer vaccine developed “immune responses to additional tumor-associated mutations.” Researchers suggested that the development of the immune responses indicated the potential for “broader anti-tumor activity.”

“Targeting KRAS has long been considered one of the difficult challenges in cancer therapy,” Wainberg stated. “This study shows that the ELI-002 2P vaccine can safely and effectively train the immune system to recognize and fight cancer-driving mutations. It offers a promising approach to generating precise and durable immune responses without the complexity or cost of fully personalized vaccines.”