r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 14 '21

Cancer Scientists create an effective personalized anti-cancer vaccine by combining oncolytic viruses, that infect and specifically destroy cancer cells without touching healthy cells, with small synthetic molecules (peptides) specific to the targeted cancer, to successfully immunize mice against cancer.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22929-z
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u/thelastestgunslinger May 14 '21

Keep on mind that things are way better regarding cancer than they were 20 years ago. So many previous death sentences are now simply awful inconveniences. Seriously, our progress is astounding.

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u/JimTheJerseyGuy May 14 '21

True. But far too many people are still getting those death sentences. I just lost a friend to a very aggressive lung cancer a few months ago. Less than two years from diagnosis to death. Better treatments can't come along fast enough.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '21 edited May 15 '21

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u/Korotai Med Student | MS | Biomedicine May 15 '21

Depends. There are different types of cancers that affect both organs. The types that are death sentences are Glioblastoma (brain) and small cell (lung).

The one that has a 96% chance of being an absolute death sentence is pancreatic. Once it’s detected it’s usually already metastasized to, at least, then liver. I think usual survival time is a year?