One of the first doses of the experimental drug was received by 52-year-old Steve Young, who underwent surgery in August last year, removing the area of skin where the tumor was located from the scalp.
The vaccine should help Steve's immune system recognize and destroy all remaining cancer cells in his body.
The effect of the drug, which has no name yet, only an encoding — mRNA-4157 (V940) — is based on the same technology used in two widely used vaccines against Covid-19. In Britain, the vaccine is undergoing the last phase III clinical trials.
Doctors at the University College London (UCLH) clinic decided to hedge their bets additionally, so along with the vaccine, the volunteers also receive a dose of another drug, pembrolizumab (aka Keytruda), which also helps the immune system destroy cancer cells.
A genetic marker
The combination treatment was developed jointly by two American companies, Moderna and Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), and is currently available to patients only in clinical trials.
In addition to Britain, the experiment will run in parallel in several other countries — including Australia — to collect more data and understand whether it makes sense to expand the tests further.
The vaccine is purely individual, that is, the final composition of the administered drug is selected in accordance with the characteristics of a particular patient.
Or even more precisely, in accordance with the unique genetic code of a particular tumor.
In this case (at least in theory), the drug should provoke the production of antibodies in the patient's body, specifically aimed at destroying cancer cells — and only them.
Fight cancer
The part of the international clinical trials that will take place in Britain will involve at least 60-70 patients from eight cancer centers across the country, including in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Leeds.
To achieve the best result, only those who have had surgery to remove a critical tumor within the last three months are selected as volunteers.
Some of the volunteers will receive a placebo shot instead of the vaccine. However, neither they nor the doctors treating them will know which group a particular volunteer is in.
Steve Young is undergoing treatment in London.
"Participating in these clinical trials gave me the opportunity to feel that I was really doing something to fight a potential invisible enemy," the musician told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"The scan showed that from a radiological point of view I am clean, but, of course, there is still a possibility that somewhere in my body cancer cells remain unnoticed."
"So instead of just sitting back and waiting —hoping that the disease will never return— I got a chance to take part in the fight: put on boxing gloves and fight him
The first symptoms of melanoma
Here are the first symptoms of melanoma that you should pay attention to:
- the appearance of a new strange mole on the body;
- growth (enlargement) or change in pigmentation of an existing mole;
- a change in pigmentation earlier than the usual area of the skin.
The earlier the tumor is detected, the easier it is to get rid of it, since the probability of successful treatment is higher.
The results of phase II clinical trials published in December showed that a shot of the vaccine with additional Keytruda immunotherapy almost doubled the likelihood that the cancer would not return within three years after surgery.
According to Dr. Shaw, it is hoped that the experimental therapy will be a "turning point" — not least because it has "quite tolerable side effects."
These, the doctor clarified, include fatigue and pain in the forearm (at the site of injection of the vaccine), that is, most patients should be vaccinated no worse than an injection of the flu vaccine or Covid.