Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and Heidelberg University Hospital led by Magnus von Knebel Doeberitz and Matthias Kloor were able to show in experiments on mice that preventive vaccination helps to delay the development of intestinal tumors and thus survival in patients with certain forms of genetic colorectal cancer (such as Lynch syndrome).
Phase I/IIa clinical trials have already been successful in humans at the Northwest Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, after experts were able to prove in animal experiments that mice that were vaccinated lived longer and had less tumor mass than unvaccinated mice.
However, this vaccination is only successful in hereditary colorectal cancer and only when it involves microsatellite unstable tumor (MSI) types that lack a cellular repair system. A genetically determined error in the genome unbalances the building instructions of a certain protein (protein substance) in such a way that novel protein structures are formed which, as so-called neoantigens, alarm the immune system of the affected person so that they are fought because they are recognized as foreign.
MSI-typical cancers either develop spontaneously or, in 25 percent of all cases, are a hereditary sequelae that can occur once in the course of life in 50 percent of all affected individuals. The carrier of the defective gene then develops the disease. In order to avoid this, the researchers believe that vaccinations with MSI-typical neoantigens can help prevent colorectal cancer.
Whether the vaccination really helps preventively can only be assessed more precisely in a few years. However, it is already known from animal studies and recommendations from other countries that a protective vaccination and simultaneously given anti-inflammatory agents as chemo-prophylaxis develop an even stronger protective effect. The positive effect is then enhanced by the active ingredient naproxen, which belongs to the group of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs for short. Like aspirin, naproxen is analgesic and anti-inflammatory and is already being used successfully in some countries for patients with Lynch syndrome.
The German scientists have cooperated with U.S. research institutions and together they have found that vaccination alone enhances the body’s natural immune response against colon cancer cells when four specific so-called vaccine peptides are administered to people with Lynch syndrome.
Source: www.heilpraxisnet.de