A Vaccine for Cancer? Groundbreaking Trials Begin in England!
By Erin Scheg, C2ST Intern, Loyola University
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with an increasing rate of cases each year. Multiple treatments, including chemotherapy, surgery, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy are utilized to help patients fight the disease. In addition to these efforts, doctors and scientists continue to seek improvements in cancer detection, prevention, diagnosis, and survivorship. Recently, a groundbreaking vaccine treatment has moved on from small human trials and has begun testing on a larger size and scale. In England, thousands of patients started trials for the National Health Service Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad. The new cancer vaccine is a type of immunotherapy that aims to cause an immune response where the patient’s own immune system targets cancer cells and prevents the cancer from returning. Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses a person’s immune system to fight cancer cells.