cancer

[IMADreamer]

I want to thank everyone for the well wishes. We got some good news today. We are at stage one and it is CCL leukemia which is very treatable. The ecologist also said she's a step ahead of most people who get it because she's in exceptional shape and a very active person. Basically the prognosis is excellent and we are going to start treatments right away and he says by Christmas it will all be a distant memory. So we are pretty relieved.

[cardinalkarp]

Great news IMA.

[Fat_Bulldog]

Great news!

[sighyoung]

That is great news. I'll continue to root for her.

[GeddyWrox]

What a relief!!! Will continue to think good thoughts for you both!!

[mikechamp]

How about a possible bit of good news in this thread?

Vaccine breakthrough stops cancer returning in trial

A new personalized vaccine given in combination with a drug has stopped skin cancer returning in patients during a trial, representing a potentially watershed moment in cancer treatment.

The vaccine, developed by drug companies Merck & Co or MSD, and Moderna, was given to patients with high-risk melanoma, a type of skin cancer, after they had surgery. Early results show this new jab extended the length of time these patients were cancer free, but it's unclear for how long, according to an announcement by the two firms. Merck, known as MSD in Europe, and Moderna are calling this a personalized vaccine, meaning it works by targeting an individual patient's tumor.

Cancer experts say this is a breakthrough, but emphasize caution as the full results have not been released or peer-reviewed whereby independent experts examine and check the trial findings.

The vaccine, called Intismeran, was given in combination with Keytruda, an immunotherapy drug already used in cancer treatment. Compared with taking the Keytruda on its own, the companies said taking the drug and vaccine together significantly increased the time patients remained cancer free and reduced the risk of the disease spreading to other organs.

The phase three trial involved more than 1,000 patients who had high-risk stage two, three or four melanoma - meaning they ranged from having large tumors in a specific area to cancers which had already spread to other parts of the body.

In order to create this new jab, scientists used mRNA technology - which was used for some Covid-19 vaccines - to target specific mutations within the cancer cells by surgically removing a small part of a patient's tumor and then sequencing its DNA. The result is a personalized anti-cancer jab which is specific to the patient's tumor and instructs the immune system to recognize and attack any tumor cells that remain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79gpv7v190o