Universal cancer vaccine trial shows significant improvement in overall survival
This is obviously good but note that it appears to be covering mesothelioma only, and "The median [overall survival] OS was 15.4 months (95% CI, 11.1-22.6) for UV1 plus ipilimumab and nivolumab (treatment arm) versus 11.1 months (95% CI, 8.8-18.1) for ipilimumab and nivolumab alone." Another headline could be: "Cancer vaccine helps some mesothelioma patients live an extra 4.3 months," which is less exciting than the headline's current phrasing. It's like how people are horrified by "you have a 20% chance of dying" but somewhat reassured by "you have an 80% chance of living."I'm dying from squamous cell carcinoma and am more excited about the Moderna approach with personalized cancer vaccines, like mRNA-4157. Early data for what I have is promising: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/moderna-s-keytruda-com...: "The combination treatment shrank tumors in five patients with head and neck cancer (50%), eliminating the tumors in two of those patients, Moderna said in a statement. Another four patients in that group had stable disease, meaning their tumors had stopped growing." Recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is almost always fatal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8155962/, unless the person responds to pembrolizumab/Keytruda (which I do not; about 20 - 30% of patients appear to respond, based on KEYNOTE-048: https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.21.02508). Unfortunately, Moderna won't make mRNA-4157 available under compassionate use or through any other means. :(Moderna, however, is in a Phase III study of mRNA-4157 in melanoma: https://www.onclive.com/view/adjuvant-mrna-4157-plus-pembrol.... Given the miraculous early data for R/M HNSCC, one hopes they'll launch new trials.Nivolumab is a PD-1 inhibitor, like pembrolizumab/Keytruda, but I don't know anything more about it.