For decades, cancer vaccines have been touted as a technology with transformative potential — a promise that always seemed to lie beyond some distant horizon. In 2023, however, the results of two clinical trials hinted that the transformation may be near.
The first report came in April, at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (ASCO). It concerned melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. In patients whose tumors had been surgically removed, researchers announced, an experimental therapeutic vaccine cut the risk of recurrence by 44 percent compared with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab alone — the standard therapy in such cases.
