Vaccinate Against Breast Cancer?
Vaccinate Against Breast Cancer?
A new vaccine made headlines recently about vaccinating women against future breast cancer, but more research must be done before being readily prescribed by doctors. The proposed breast cancer vaccine targets a protein called alpha-lactalbumin, found in the majority of breast cancer tumors. The idea, according to researchers, is that just as people get a flu shot with a weakened strain of the flu virus, that a small amount of disabled, but still similar amounts of alpha-lactalbumin could vaccinate women against breast cancer. The small amount of disabled alpha-lactalbumin protein would act as a way to "awaken" a persons immune system to the protein as a potential threat, allowing the body time to build up immunity for any future development of the protein and effectively fighting future breast cancerdevelopment.
The research was performed at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and so far has worked well on a group of cancer prone mice where at eight months after receiving the vaccination shot none of the mice showed signs of cancer, in contrast to the control group that did not receive the shot who all had cancer.
According to researchers the results are extremely impressive, but it remains an uphill battle to see if the same approach will work in humans. "If everything that worked in mice also worked in humans we would be a lot further along in cancer research," according to Larry Norton, MD. "Unfortunately it is always much more difficult, but nonetheless the results are extremely promising."
As breast cancer therapies have improved over the years, preventative measures are still lacking. Currently according to the Cancer Society, the best prevention is to maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly, and eat a portion-controlled diet. A cancer vaccine would go a long way towards preventing a disease that afflicts so many women nationwide in the United States that the National Institute of Health has awarded the group at the Cleveland Clinic a large multi-year grant to pursue the work first for its safety in humans and then to start the first series of trials, called Phase I Clinical, to test its effectiveness in humans.
According to the Cleveland Clinic press release, a good result moving forward would mean that a vaccine would be available from your doctor ten years from now. Until then focus on prevention through daily exercise, healthy lifestyle choices, and screening regularly with self exams and yearly exams with your doctor.
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