In a breakthrough find, British scientists have developed a treatment that can stop leukaemia. This can be done by vaccination in the stage right after a bone marrow transplant or chemotherapy. The drug can activate the immune system of the body against leukaemia. In fact, in the future it can be used to treat other forms of cancer.
Leukaemia is cancer of the bone marrow and wide blood cells. Its treatment is usually done in two phases. The first phase is chemotherapy. The second phase is a bone marrow transplant or further chemotherapy. It is one of the most killing diseases. Most people do not survive more than 5 years even with diagnosis and therapy.
The newly discovered vaccine is going to be tried on patients who suffer from AML or Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. This is one of the most common types of leukaemia in adults which returns even after the strongest treatments.
Cancer vaccines do not actually prevent the disease itself. Their basic job is to make the immune system stronger so that the cancer cells in the body are traced out and destroyed. The immune system is prompted to recognize these malignant cells if they return. This prevents a relapse. Cells from the blood of a patient is removed and manipulated in the laboratory. The resultant product is used for creating the vaccine.
So basically, this vaccine follows the principle of any other normal vaccine, where the immune system is boosted to become curative. So that it can trace out foreign particles and destroy them itself.
Two genes are introduced to the cells. These act as radars to identify leukaemia. As a result, the ability of the immune system is boosted. And therefore it can find out and accordingly destroy the cancer cells.
It has taken more than 20 years to develop this vaccine. If the trials on patients turn out to be successful then it can be used to treat other forms of cancers and leukaemia. In the beginning stages of implementing the process, patients who have undergone a bone marrow transplant or chemotherapy will be enrolled. Following the success of these trials, the vaccine would be further tested on patients who have never had a bone marrow transplant. Many patients cannot have bone marrow transplants because a match is not available or the transplant is not suitable. Therefore, the success of this vaccine would also mean that the patient does not have to go through the ordeal of finding a match.
On the whole, vaccine treatments for cancer is definitely better then the whole ordeal of chemotherapy. Though, it is a bit early to judge the potentiality of this vaccine. But if it is successful it will bring a whole new era in cancer treatments and cures. Study and research show that the experiments have been quite successful on mice infected with leukaemia. Vaccination on them increased their life span by an equivalent of human twenty five years. In the case of half of the mice, there was no relapse. Now it has to be seen how effective this vaccination will prove to be for human beings.
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