Cleveland Clinic researchers have opened a clinical trial for a vaccine that could prevent an aggressive form of breast cancer before it occurs, the Clinic announced [October 26].
The proposed vaccine is aimed at potentially preventing triple-negative breast cancer, the most lethal form of the disease.
“This day has been more than two decades in the making,” Vincent Tuohy, the primary inventor of the vaccine and staff immunologist at Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, said during a virtual press briefing [October 26]. Preclinical studies showed that a single vaccination could prevent breast tumors from occurring, and inhibit the growth of already existing breast tumors.
“If the vaccine is successful, it has the potential to transform the way we control adult onset cancers,” Tuohy said.
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“Long term, we are hoping that this can be a true preventive vaccine that would be administered to healthy women to prevent them from developing triple-negative breast cancer, the form of breast cancer for which we have the least effective treatments.” said Dr. G. Thomas Budd of Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute and principal investigator of the study.
