In Russia, the first patient received a personalized cancer vaccine

In Russia, for the first time in clinical practice, a personalized domestic vaccine against cancer was used to help a patient who became a 60-year-old resident of the Kursk region, the press service of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation reported to Izvestia on April 1.

"This is a truly important event for world medical science, for oncology. <...> This breakthrough treatment technology will very soon become available to citizens of our country who need such treatment for medical reasons. This is not a panacea, but an additional tool in the hands of oncologists," said Mikhail Murashko, head of the Ministry of Health.

The procedure was performed at the National Medical Research Center (NMIC) of Radiology of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, a man with skin melanoma was injected with the antitumor mRNA vaccine Neoonkovac. The patient is currently undergoing immunotherapy.

"Despite the ongoing treatment, there remains a high risk of further progression and the standard options will be extremely limited. Under these conditions, the use of a personalized mRNA vaccine is considered as a means of controlling the disease," the release says.

The agency pointed out that Neoonkovac can currently be used as a therapy for the treatment of adult patients who have inoperable or metastatic melanoma of the skin.

"Today we are at a point where oncology is becoming truly personalized. For the first time, we have used an mRNA vaccine designed for a specific patient. This is a fundamentally different approach — not just to treat the disease, but to "train" the immune system to recognize and destroy exactly those cells that pose a threat," commented Andrey Kaprin, Director General of the Russian Ministry of Health's Scientific Research Center for Radiology, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

According to Murashko, after the first use of the drug, the clinical application of the latest technology to save people's lives was completed and, on behalf of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, included in the state guarantees program.

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Injections complement standard therapy, forming a comprehensive approach to cancer treatment.

Alexander Gintsburg, Scientific Director of the N.F. Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology (NITSEM) of the Russian Ministry of Health, said on January 3 that the effectiveness of the Russian vaccine for the treatment of melanoma is more than 90%.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.