Doctors are testing new vaccines that represent a promising new step in the fight against cancer. They’re hoping the shots could stop colon cancer before it ever develops in people at very high risk.
The focus is on Lynch syndrome, an inherited genetic condition that greatly increases the risk of colorectal and several other cancers.
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Right now, three experimental vaccines are in development — two in U.S. clinical trials and another in Britain. Researchers hope the shots can train the immune system to recognize and destroy abnormal cells before they turn into cancer.
“So in a sense, we are teaching the immune system to recognize those proteins early in the process of tumor formation. So our immune system is prepared and trained to eliminate those cells before they grow further,” Dr. Eduardo Vilar-Sánchez of MD Anderson Cancer Center said.
The lifetime risk of colorectal cancer is about five percent for the general population. For someone with Lynch syndrome, that risk can climb as high as 80%.
Until better prevention is available, people with Lynch syndrome are still urged to get yearly colonoscopies to help catch cancer as early as possible.
Currently, there are two cancer-preventing vaccines: the HPV and hepatitis B shots, which block infection from the tumor-causing viruses. But researchers told The Associated Press that developing vaccines to prevent gene-caused cancer is more challenging than alerting the body to foreign intruders like a virus.
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