A new approach to cancer treatment is showing encouraging results, New York Post reports.
In a groundbreaking early-phase trial, a personalized vaccine successfully triggered a strong immune response in nine patients with advanced kidney cancer, keeping them in remission for at least three years.
Kidney cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States, affecting over 62,000 people annually. While existing immune therapies help some patients by stimulating the body’s defenses, they don’t always direct immune cells precisely to cancerous areas. This can limit their effectiveness and, in some cases, lead to harmful side effects.
The newly developed vaccine takes a different approach. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all treatment, researchers created custom vaccines tailored to each patient’s specific cancer. Tumor samples from surgery were analyzed using advanced DNA sequencing technology to identify unique molecular features—known as neoantigens—that appear only in cancer cells. Scientists then selected the most promising neoantigens and incorporated them into the personalized vaccine.
The vaccine was administered after surgery to train the immune system to recognize and destroy any remaining cancer cells. All nine trial participants, who had stage III or IV clear cell renal cell carcinoma—an aggressive form of kidney cancer—remained cancer-free for at least three years following treatment.
Dr. David Braun, the study’s lead author, explained the significance of the findings:
“We learned which specific targets in the cancer are most susceptible to immune attack and demonstrated that this approach can generate long-lasting immune responses.”
Side effects reported during the trial were mild, with some patients experiencing flu-like symptoms and localized reactions at the injection site.
Experts believe this breakthrough could pave the way for more effective, personalized treatments for kidney cancer and beyond. Clinical trials are already exploring similar vaccines for liver, breast, pancreatic, brain, and skin cancers.
While these early results are promising, researchers emphasize that larger trials are needed to confirm the vaccine’s long-term safety and effectiveness. The second phase of testing is now underway, combining the vaccine with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab to see if the combination can further reduce the risk of recurrence.
“The tools we have to lower the risk of recurrence are not perfect, and we are relentlessly looking for more,” said Dr. Toni Choueiri, co-senior author of the study.
