A woman from Scotland has become the first patient in Europe to receive a cancer jab for gastro-oesophageal cancer.
Jennifer Robertson said that she is “excited and privileged” to be on the early-stage clinical trial for the vaccine.
The 59-year-old, from Broughty Ferry near Dundee, is the fifth person in the world to receive the personalised cancer treatment.
This is a very novel treatment approach which could transform the way we treat cancer
The treatment, known as an individualised neoantigen therapy, works by harnessing a patient’s own immune system to attack and destroy cancer cells.
The jab, created by pharmaceutical companies Moderna and MSD, is personalised for each patient taking it, and it uses the similar technology to the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine.
Scientists make the jab after analysing the biological make-up of tumours to find potential targets for the immune system to attack.
Ms Robertson will receive up to nine doses of the personalised treatment, alongside traditional treatments of surgery and chemotherapy.
Tayside Cancer Centre, a University of Dundee and NHS Tayside facility, is one of 38 cancer centres around the world running the early-stage trial of the mRNA therapy for people with gastric and gastro-oesophageal cancer.
Only 20 patients across the world who have stomach or gastro-oesophageal cancer – this is cancer which starts where the stomach meets the food pipe, also known as the oesophagus – are planned to be given this therapy during its current phase 1 clinical trial.
The treatment is also being investigated in people with non-small cell lung cancer and pancreatic cancer.
Ms Robertson was diagnosed with gastro-oesophageal cancer in July after suffering acid reflux and food travelling back up her oesophagus after having been eaten.
Anything I can do along the way to help cancer research, I’m happy to do
She said: “I’d had two endoscopies and a CT scan done so I’d heard the word cancer many times before I was given my diagnosis, but it was still a shock.
“There is only one outcome for me and that is that I’m going to overcome it and beat it – it’s a very positive fight and I’m going to get through it.”
On joining the trial, she said: “I’m excited and privileged to be the first person in Europe to have this treatment, that’s really something special.
“Anything I can do along the way to help cancer research, I’m happy to do.”
Russell Petty, professor of medical oncology at the University of Dundee and director of research and development at NHS Tayside, who is leading the clinical trial in Scotland, said: “This therapy aims to provide a new approach to engaging the patient’s own immune system to fight their cancer.
“This trial is establishing critical foundations that bring us closer to developing therapies for solid tumours that are potentially efficacious, less toxic and more precise.
“It is currently being used alongside other cancer treatments in patients who are receiving surgery to remove their tumours, but ultimately if successful the therapy could have much broader use in the future.
“This is a very novel treatment approach which could transform the way we treat cancer, and these trials are the beginning of that journey. Every patient who this works for provides us with more knowledge to improve the way we treat cancer.”
The trial is also open across the UK in hospitals in London, Manchester and Oxford.
