ISLAMABAD - The dread and fear of the fatal disease, cancer, has always been there. More than its consequences and the changes it causes in day to day life, its treatment, which includes chemotherapy and radiation, is what brings chills down the spine.
But it may soon have an easy and painless prevention as researchers and health experts at Stanford University have developed a compound which when injected into a tumor helps in destroying it.
Not only this, the good news is that this vaccine can also kill all the other cancerous masses present in the body.
This compound has been first successfully tested in mice. After this successful experiment, it may soon be available for human trials.
This compound is a combination of two agents. These agents help in stimulating the immune system and spark body's reaction in mice. Eventually, it destroyed cancer cells not only where the vaccine was injected but also far from the injection point.
The treatment is now considered successful and according to researchers, will soon be available for human trials.
Initially, it will be tested on 15 patients, suffering from lymphoma. As researchers have got the positive result from animal testing, they hope to see encouraging results from human testing too.
They also revealed that out of 90 mice, who had lymphoma, 87 were cancer-free and that too after the first treatment. What's more motivating is that remaining three also got rid of cancer after the second shot.
This new method targets specific immune cells that can be reactivated to fight cancer cells. Ronald Levy, professor of oncology and lead author of the study said, "I don't think there's a limit to the type of tumor we could potentially treat, as long as it has been infiltrated by the immune system." - TNN