(ANSA) - ROME - After seven years of international experimentation of Hepavac, coordinated by the Cancer Institute of Naples, the first positive results of the vaccine against liver cancer arrive, published in the American journal Clinical Cancer Research.
In October 2018 at Pascale the first patient was vaccinated with Hepavac, the first vaccine currently tested against liver cancer discovered by an international team of researchers, coordinated by immunologist Luigi Buonaguro.
After 4 years from that day and, before that, 3 years of studies, which involved, in addition to Italy with the Cancer Institute of Naples and the Sacred Heart of Verona, four other European countries, Germany, Spain , Belgium and the United Kingdom vaccinated patients are 20 out of 80 people enrolled.
Side effects observed in vaccinated patients were minimal.
According to the institute, the results that emerged from the experimentation can be defined as "extremely interesting and promising and lay the next foundations for continuing in the clinical study on a greater number of patients".
"These data - underlines Luigi Buonaguro, director of the laboratory of Innovative Immunological Models of Pascale - open a possible new therapeutic horizon for liver cancer, for which the therapeutic armamentarium is still very limited and which represents the third cause of mortality for The results demonstrated the complete safety of the vaccine with low-grade, rapidly resolving adverse effects. Patients' immunological response was significant with induction of specific T cells for vaccine antigens. Furthermore, preliminary data show an increase in disease-free period in vaccinated patients ".
The next goals are to enhance the immunogenic response of the vaccine formulation.
(HANDLE).
