A Possible Cancer Vaccine?

An exciting development from the University of Oslo will be able to prolong lives of patients with pancreatic cancer. The development of a cancer vaccine has promising effects to improve life expectancy and will hopefully kill all types of cancer cells as well.

Gustav Gaudernack, the Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Cancer Research at the University of Oslo, Norway has been making research for the past 20 years regarding the use of various vaccines in the fight against pancreatic cancer. This type of cancer has the highest mortality rate and the lowest survival rate compared to other types of cancers.

Gaudernack and his team made the first trial for cancer vaccine way back in 1993. The first trial produced a cancer vaccine that stimulated the immune system to destroy cancer cells that contained mutations which were seen as seven during that time. It was just in 2011 that the study for long-term survival for patients who used the vaccine before was concluded. The study showed that a fifth of the patients who received the vaccine survived seven to ten years and in patients who were not vaccinated, not a single one survived.

Innovation Norway and through the company Targovax, Gaudernack’s research group has received funds to test the cancer vaccine to a larger group of patients who are operated. But for those who cannot undergo surgery, the average number of months to live is less than 6 months. Gaudernack however has a new vaccine for patients who could not possibly go for surgery.

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