Recently a new cancer treatment has been created. This is a phrase we have often heard before, but this new “vaccine,” as it has been called by some of the people on the project, may be incredibly different from other cancer treating medicines, Stanford (who created the “vaccine”) said. The “two immune-stimulating agents” have had an incredible effect on lab mice, and human testing is beginning at the moment.

The new treatment developed by Stanford has been able to completely eliminate solid tumors, even with only trace amounts of the medication having been administered, exactly a microgram- a measurement that is one one-millionth of a gram, as reported in the study. But the treatment did not just eliminate tumors in the area of the body in which it was injected, but actually was able to eliminate cancer throughout the body of the mice. Compared to many other cancer-combating techniques this is a vast improvement, as it has worked in far more lab cases and more efficiently, making this a major breakthrough in the battle against cancer.

One of the two components of the treatment has already been cleared for use in humans, and the other of the components is currently under unrelated human testing. A clinical test of the cancer drug is underway, though.

The drug functions by simply reactivating the “cancer-specific T cells,” which eliminates many of the side-effects of other drugs that function by stimulating the entire immune system (which can be rather taxing on the body). The medication’s ability to cure cancers that were not directly treated stems from the fact that the reactivated T cells are able to leave their tumor of origin and travel to other cancer cells of identical nature, allowing the treatment to not only destroy one tumor, but to flush the cancer cells from the body entirely, reducing chances of remission. In fact, Stanford has said that 87 out of the 90 tested mice were entirely cured, with only three encountering a remission.   

Although this treatment is not entirely perfect, it is a major step in the right direction towards being able to eliminate the threat of cancer.

“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,” doctor Ronald Levy said.