A U.K. lab has received a funding boost to develop the world’s first vaccine for ovarian cancer. Over 12,000 women in the U.S. die from ovarian cancer each year and the disease is often diagnosed at quite a late stage because two of the common symptoms—bloating and low appetite, overlap with many other less serious conditions. Although treatments have improved in the last few decades, ovarian cancers remain very hard to treat, with only around 50% of women surviving five years or more after diagnosis.
The project to develop the vaccine, funded by Cancer Research UK, will first focus on women who have mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. Most commonly known to significantly increase the risk of developing breast cancer, carriers of BRCA gene mutations also have an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. Women in the general population have around a 2% lifetime risk of ovarian cancer, but in people carrying BRCA gene mutations, lifetime risk is up to 45%.
“We need better strategies to prevent ovarian cancer,” said Professor Ahmed Ahmed, Director of the Ovarian Cancer Cell Laboratory at the University of Oxford and leader of the OvarianVax project. “Women with BRCA1/2 mutations, who are at very high risk, are offered surgery which prevents cancer but robs them of the chance to have children afterwards,” said Professor Ahmed.
Currently, women who carry BRCA gene mutations are recommended to have their ovaries removed by their mid-thirties, resulting in early menopause.
The proposed vaccine will work very differently to the already-available cancer-prevention vaccine which protects against cervical cancer by building immunity against several strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancers, as well as many cases of mouth, throat, rectal and head and neck cancer.
Ovarian cancer like many other cancer types is caused by the build up of faults in the DNA of cells, which eventually cause them to become cancerous. In people with BRCA mutations, this build up of damage happens far more quickly than in people without BRCA mutations, giving them a significantly increased risk of ovarian cancer.
Using ovarian cancer samples donated by patients with the disease, the researchers will look for common mutations which result in abnormal proteins which the immune system recognizes. The researchers then plan to use this information to make a vaccine which triggers the immune system to detect these abnormal proteins.
“Teaching the immune system to recognise the very early signs of cancer is a tough challenge. But we now have highly sophisticated tools which give us real insights into how the immune system recognises ovarian cancer,” said Professor Ahmed.
If successful, OvarianVax could train a person’s immune system to attack any abnormal ovarian cells as they arise, without the person even knowing anything was awry.
“OvarianVax could offer the solution to prevent cancer, firstly in women at high risk but also more widely if trials prove successful,” said Professor Ahmed.
Even if development of the vaccine is successful, it will have to go through several stages of clinical trials before it gets approved for use, so it is likely several years off.
