Scientists are developing a vaccine that will enable the body to attack cancerous cells in tumours. The vaccine is opening up new possibilities and opportunities for breast cancer and ovarian cancer patients and giving them hope for survival.

The vaccine, known as PANVAC, was given to 26 women who participated in a study organized by Dr. James Gulley from the Laboratory of Tumour Immunology and Biology at the United States National Cancer Institute.

PANVAC assists the body in trying to distinguish proteins that originate from cancer cells.

The participants of the study are all diagnosed with either breast or ovarian cancer that have spread to other parts of the body. They have been accommodated in the study due to being "heavily pre-treated" with other treatments designed for curing cancer. There are 21 of these women who have been under at least three chemotherapy sessions in the past.

According to Dr. Gulley, most of the participants in the study have exhausted all possible treatments and because of this, their immune systems find it difficult to respond. The PANVAC vaccine encourages the immune system to respond and destroy cancer cells. The side effects were only mild, with only minor reactions on the injection site noted during the study.

For the 12 women participants with breast cancer, the cancer ceased progressing by 2.5 months and the median overall survival was 13.7 months. For the 14 women participants with ovarian cancer, the cancer ceased progressing by two months and the median overall survival was 15 months.

"Whenever there is a research on biological treatments that show success, we get very excited," shares Dr. Elizabeth Poynor, a gynaecologic oncologist and pelvic surgeon from the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, as she expressed her appreciation for the research.

"No matter what the scale of the study is, even if it is small, once there are positive results we feel hopeful about a particular technique. Patients who have undergone a lot of treatment are the ones who are most difficult to treat," Dr. Poynor says.

The study focusing on the PANVAC vaccine was published on November 8 in the Clinical Cancer Research Journal.