Turkish doctors in the United States have invented a vaccine to prevent the progression of breast cancer in the human body.
It is currently being tested on 10 volunteers in a clinical trial, and will be expanded to 50 volunteers in the next phase according to Atilla Soran, a breast surgical oncologist leading the research.
Their research at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has drawn widespread attention in the US, and has been described as a “very important development” by the media.
Breast cancer is among the most common cancer types among women not only in the US but across the world, including Türkiye, Soran said.
“We think that this vaccine will prevent the progression of breast cancer in the human body,” the Turkish professor added.
“The most important thing that the research group, including myself, has achieved is that a vaccine that has been developed and tested in a laboratory for years is now moving to clinical trial.”
Volunteers will be monitored for the next five years, and the vaccine will be approved for commercial use only after it is declared safe to use in larger clinical trials.
Second deadliest cancer type
Breast cancer is the second-most deadliest cancer after lung cancer among women, Soran said.
Around 360,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in the US in 2023, he said, adding that only 16 percent of them will get an early diagnosis.
“If the vaccine enters into force at this very phase, then we think we can prevent the disease from progressing in the bodies of at least a great part of those 360,000 women,” he said.
However, Soran added that clinical trials for the vaccine are going on at a slow pace because breast cancer does not pose an acute risk like the Covid-19 pandemic.
Upon being invited to the US in 1997 to work as an expert, Soran had become the very first person who earned professorship in 2004 at the Pittsburgh University’s Mammaplasty Department.
In 2007, he called his research shedding new light on advanced breast cancer the "Turkish Study". It is still recognised by the same name the world over.
Source: TRTworld.com