Cuba has a cancer vaccine, with good results.
U.S. researchers say a Cuban lung cancer vaccine shows promise in preventing the recurrence of lung cancer — the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.
Snip: What makes the Cuban lung-cancer vaccine so exciting to researchers is that instead of attacking cancer cells themselves, as most immunotherapies do, it generates an immune response against EGF, a growth factor circulating in the blood that cancer cells need to grow and thrive.
“By generating that immune response, it neutralizes the circulating (epidermal growth factor or EGF), starves the cancer, and the cancer stops growing,” Lee said.
Because of the way it appears to work, the vaccine could potentially be effective against other cancers such as colon and head and neck cancers that also rely on EGF to grow.
Unlike other cancer therapies, which may cause serious side effects, patients treated with CIMAvax tolerate the vaccine well. “Side effects for Cuban patients on the vaccine have been very minimal,” said Dr. Grace Dy, chief of thoracic oncology and the chief investigator in the CIMAvax trial.
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