Doctors say a vaccine and clinical trials underway in the Upstate could change the way we treat cancer. It could lessen the side effects and save lives. Dr. Thomas Wagner has been developing a cancer immunology vaccine since the late ’90s. This week, his company Orbis Health Solutions started a new clinical trial testing it on cancer patients with tumors. During the last trial, Wagner said the vaccine had an overwhelming effect on stage 4 melanoma patients and no major side effects. “Their chance of survival 2 years later is less than 20%,” Dr. Wagner said. “Nonetheless of the patients we’ve treated, 90, 95% of them are survivors without disease over 3 years later.”Here’s how it works: Doctors take a sample of the tumor and put it within a molecule the body reads as the disease.That’s because cancer is just your own cells becoming cancerous, so your body doesn’t recognize the bad cells as a threat. This vaccine trains your immune system to do so. “It will clear the cancer and it will also give you immunological memory for the remainder of your life,” Wagner said.He said it already has for hundreds of patients. One Greenville woman is still alive 23 years after first being diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma and given 3 months to live.Before the vaccine hits the market, Dr. Wagner said they’ll need to finish a Phase 3 FDA clinical trial, an expensive, lengthy process. But he says he’s an optimist. Wagner said, “I’m now pretty much convinced that cancer will be cured in a relatively short period of time by a combination of early detection and immunotherapy.”
Doctors say a vaccine and clinical trials underway in the Upstate could change the way we treat cancer. It could lessen the side effects and save lives.
Dr. Thomas Wagner has been developing a cancer immunology vaccine since the late ’90s. This week, his company Orbis Health Solutions started a new clinical trial testing it on cancer patients with tumors.
During the last trial, Wagner said the vaccine had an overwhelming effect on stage 4 melanoma patients and no major side effects.
“Their chance of survival 2 years later is less than 20%,” Dr. Wagner said. “Nonetheless of the patients we’ve treated, 90, 95% of them are survivors without disease over 3 years later.”
Here’s how it works: Doctors take a sample of the tumor and put it within a molecule the body reads as the disease.
That’s because cancer is just your own cells becoming cancerous, so your body doesn’t recognize the bad cells as a threat. This vaccine trains your immune system to do so.
“It will clear the cancer and it will also give you immunological memory for the remainder of your life,” Wagner said.
He said it already has for hundreds of patients. One Greenville woman is still alive 23 years after first being diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma and given 3 months to live.
Before the vaccine hits the market, Dr. Wagner said they’ll need to finish a Phase 3 FDA clinical trial, an expensive, lengthy process. But he says he’s an optimist.
Wagner said, “I’m now pretty much convinced that cancer will be cured in a relatively short period of time by a combination of early detection and immunotherapy.”
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