A Light At The End of The Tunnel: A Promising New Vaccine Buys More Time For Survivors

We always think we have enough time -time to pursue our dreams, time to spend with our loved ones and time to accomplish our work. The thing is, we may be giving ourselves false hope – not everybody is given the chance to live the life they want. This is especially true for the men and women diagnosed with cancer. Once you’ve been told you have it, time becomes a luxury. Suddenly, you realize that you may have very little time left to live the life you want.

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may have found a way to give survivors more time with their loved ones. Although still in its early developmental stages, the team is developing a vaccine that would slow down the progression of breast cancer. The vaccine targets a protein that can be found exclusively in breast tissue called Mammoglobin-A. It works by activating the body’s white blood cells to start attacking cells that contain Mammoglobin-A. Because this protein is almost exclusively found in breast tissue, this vaccine is said to have little to no effect on other body cells which reduces side effects.

The study involved 14 patients with metastatic breast cancer. The results revealed that half of the participants showed no disease progression a year after the vaccine was given. It was also showed that the vaccine works even with the weak immune system brought about by conventional cancer therapy.

Although the results of this trial are promising, skeptics are saying that the population tested is too small to call the results definitive. We’d just like to point out that there was a time when children all over the world were crippled by polio. But thanks to the tireless efforts to put an end to it, Polio breakouts are now reduced to a few small communities. We believe, as these researchers do, that there is still hope to find a vaccine that would finally put an end to breast cancer.