Health experts have praised a potentially “groundbreaking” vaccine to treat early-stage bowel cancer that is about to be trialled in the UK and Australia.
The treatment will be trialled at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide.
Doctors plan to administer the vaccine to patients before surgery in the hope that it will enable the body to attack cancer cells.
This vaccine could make any surgery less invasive. Doctors hope that the strength of the vaccine could support the immune system to respond if the cancer relapses and then returns.
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Dr. Tony Dhillon, the lead investigator of this study and Surrey’s consultant medical oncologist, came up with the idea for the trial and has been working with Professor Tim Price in Australia for the past 4 years to develop the vaccine.
Dhillon said:
This is the first therapeutic vaccine developed for any gastrointestinal cancer and we have high hopes that it will be very successful. We think that after this treatment, the cancer will disappear completely in many patients.
The trial will be conducted by the UK Southampton Cancer Clinical Research Unit at the University of Southampton in collaboration with Surrey and Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
There will be 10 sites, 6 in Australia and 4 in the UK, where patients will be enrolled and 44 patients will be enrolled over an 18-month period.
Patients will undergo an endoscopy and then have a tissue sample tested to see if they are eligible for the study. If they are eligible, they will receive three doses of the vaccine before the cancerous tissue is surgically removed.
This study will only be available for 44 patients worldwide. Once the trial is complete, the vaccine will either be licensed for use or, if successful, a larger study will be conducted.
The vaccine was designed by Imugene Ltd, a company involved in clinical-stage immuno-oncology.
Dr. Dhillon added the following:
This is groundbreaking work. I feel like we’re on the verge of something really big here. The vaccine allows the immune system to attack the cancer.
This will break new ground because now potentially patients can just get the vaccine instead of having surgery.
The work we are doing at the Royal Surrey is fantastic. We are very proud to be involved in this world-class study and believe it could play a key role in the treatment of bowel cancer in the future.
Louise Stead, Surrey’s chief executive, said:
We are very proud to be involved in the introduction of this groundbreaking new vaccine.
As the 4th largest cancer center in the UK, ensuring we fight cancer is a big part of what we do, and this vaccine will really open up an opportunity for bowel cancer patients, giving them great hope of beating the disease.
I congratulate Dr. Tony Dhillon and everyone involved in this study for all their hard work.
Bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, is the third most common cancer worldwide, with an annual incidence of more than 1.2 million cases and a mortality rate of nearly 50 percent.
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