Medical experts of Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center, announced that they officially started clinical trials of the new vaccine that is designed to prevent triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) last October 26.

After two decades of research and laboratory studies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the investigational application for the vaccine which allows medical experts to move forward and conduct human trials.

“We are hopeful that this research will lead to more advanced trials to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine against this highly aggressive type of breast cancer,” said G. Thomas Budd, M.D., principal investigator of Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute.

The phase-one of the human trials aims to determine the possible side effects and dosage of the vaccine to 18 – 24 patients, who have a history of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) and are currently tumor-free for three years.

Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D., the primary inventor of the vaccine and immunologist at Cleaveland Clinic stated that “our (Cleveland Clinic) research program focuses on developing vaccines that prevent diseases we confront with age, like breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers. If successful, these vaccines have the potential to transform the way we control adult-onset cancers and enhance life expectancy.”

Breast cancer is not a transmissible or infectious disease but according to World Health Organization, there were a total of 7.8 million women alive who were diagnosed with breast cancer in the past 5 years and 685,000 deaths globally.

This viable vaccine to prevent triple-negative breast cancer has the potential to represent a new way to prevent breast cancer and may also apply to other tumor types.

The study is estimated to be completed in September 2022.

Source: https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2021/10/26/cleveland-clinic-launches-first-of-its-kind-preventive-breast-cancer-vaccine-study/, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/breast-cancer