A clinical trial conducted since 2016, testing the effectiveness of a cancer vaccine developed for dogs, is showing positive results – if successful, the result could be a major advance in cancer vaccines developed for humans as well.
The study included 300 children and they were vaccinated. The 12-month survival rate for some tumors has increased from 35 to 60 percent, and in many cases the size of the tumors has also decreased.
In his official name EGFR/HER2 peptide cancer immunotherapy in dogs It arose from research into autoimmune diseases, conditions in which the body's defense system attacks its own tissues and cells. What is problematic in the case of autoimmune diseases is the task itself.
In many ways, tumors resemble targets of autoimmune diseases. Cancer cells are your own tissues that your immune system attacks. The difference is that in this case we really want the immune system to attack
– explained Mark Mamula, MD, a rheumatologist at Yale University School of Medicine.
The vaccine works by causing the body to bind antibodies that signal attack targets to proteins that are specific to the tumor. One of these proteins is EGFR, or epidermal growth factor, and the other is HER2, or epidermal growth factor receptor. Overproduction of the two proteins leads to the uncontrolled division that characterizes cancer cells. The advantage of the vaccine is that it stimulates the production of various antibodies, so the tumor cannot simply adapt and become resistant.
In veterinary oncology, we have much fewer tools than in human oncology. This vaccine is revolutionary. As a veterinary oncologist, I couldn't be more excited
Jerry Post said
Vaccination is currently not used as a preventative method, but rather as a treatment after diagnosis. A dog is alive and well two years after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which affects the bones.
Success is not guaranteed
Vaccination is still important, but one in four dogs will develop some type of tumor. Cancers in dogs and humans are very similar, so vaccination has important lessons for treating humans as well.
In dogs, as in humans, cancer develops spontaneously, growing, spreading and metastasizing, just as human cancer does.
Mamula noted.
Based on experience, the problem with vaccination is that it does not work equally well for all dogs, so it is impossible to predict whether it will work or not. The situation will certainly be similar for such vaccines developed for humans.
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