Optimism prevails in the scientific community following statements made by BioNTech's Ugur Sahin, who developed the Pfizer vaccine against coronavirus, about the production of cancer vaccines. Anastasis Perrakis, director of research at the Dutch Cancer Institute and a professor at Utrecht University, shares this optimism.
"I share the optimism. There are already vaccines aimed at specific cancers. There is no disease called cancer at the moment, there are many very different diseases with very different prognosis and with very different treatment ", he stressed initially in the First Program 91,6 and 105,8 and in the show" The GPS of the news "with Thanos Siafaka.
"For example, o cancer to the breast in the vast majority of cases - over 90% at the moment - allows a normal life for many, many years. "Other cancers are much more difficult."
According to Mr. Perrakis, the vaccines we have for cancer should not be confused with the vaccines we have for infections. "The common denominator between the two is that they activate our body's defenses, the immune system, so that the body can deal with the disease on its own. Vaccines for infections are preventative, but for cancer they have a therapeutic value. It is a treatment that is done after the diagnosis, with some specific pathologies. "There are currently vaccines for some cancers in clinical trials," he explained.
"Clinical studies for cancer are at a real level, many patients benefit from the clinical trials of phase 3 both in Greece and abroad," he added.
"There is no disease that is cancer, there will never be a cancer vaccine"
The professor also stressed in his statements: "I believe that in 2-3 years for some cancers, for some pathologies - I can not know what they will be - there may be 1 or 2 vaccines for special cases. This is what the scientists had in mind.
Under no circumstances will there be a cancer vaccine. I do not want this to be a message. There is no one disease that is cancer. There will never be a cancer vaccine, a cure for cancer. These I can assure you will never be. There will be specific treatments for specific cancers for specific patients, which will multiply. We will see huge developments even in 2-3 years, especially in a 10-year horizon. "Our goal for the next 10 to 20 years is for cancer to be a disease like diabetes, which will be treated with mild treatments and will allow an excellent quality of life for many years for cancer patients."
via: Newsbeast