Cuba releases world's first lung cancer vaccine

[Bosonic]

(Medical Xpress) -- As the most common and deadliest form of cancer, lung cancer kills 1.4 million people per year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. While current treatments may improve the survival rate when the cancer is caught in its early stages, the five-year survival rate for late-stage lung cancer can be less than 1%. Now some patients with advanced lung cancer may have another tool to combat the disease, as Cuban medical authorities announced on Tuesday that they will begin selling the world’s first therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer.

The vaccine, called CimaVax-EGF, is intended for patients with lung cancer in stages three and four who have shown no positive response to other kinds of treatment, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Although the vaccine doesn’t cure the disease, it can minimize the cancer’s growth due to its antibodies that combat the proteins that allow uncontrolled cell growth.

"The drug could turn the cancer into a manageable, chronic disease by generating antibodies against the proteins which triggered the uncontrolled cell proliferation," said Gisela Gonzalez at the Center of Molecular Immunology (CIM) in Havana, who is lead researcher of the project. "It is not possible to prevent the disease, but this vaccine improves significantly the status of the critically ill patients.”

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-cuba-world-lung-cancer-vaccine.html

[gtar100]

1. It's evident that with money being the driving force behind the US healthcare system,

that we should look for serious breakthroughs in medical research to come from other countries not hopelessly tied to our pharmaceutical industry. Curing illnesses is unfortunately not as highly profitable as prolonging the illness and treating the symptoms. I hope we hear more about this from Cuba and elsewhere. We obviously can't count on the US.

[valerief]

2. The vaccine will likely be banned in the U.S. nt

[txlibdem]

4. +1 zero profit in curing a disease, mega profits in keeping you on a "treatment" for life

When was the last time you heard of an American Big Pharma coming out with a cure... for anything?

[David Sky]

3. Are the clinical trials studies available for peer review? If so, where?

I would like to have some independent verification of the results of trials.

Would those trials be replicated in other nations? (Trials in any modern western, middle-eastern, or eastern nations following strict medical trials protocols, I don't care which nations). It's not that I don't trust Cuban scientists, but the Cuban population has an unusually high rate of lung Cancer, and I want to see studies done in other populations with other levels of smoking habits.