A recent study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine claims that promising outcome was seen in a small clinical trial of patients with lymphoma with the use of an experimental cancer “vaccine”.

The treatment in 11 patients with lymphoma was tested by researchers at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital. Following some very good outcome of those tests, the researchers decided ot go ahead with another clinical trial on lymphoma patients as well as breast and head-and-neck cancer in March.

Some patients in the initial human trial went into full remission for months or even years, researchers said.

The treatment “has broad implications for multiple types of cancer,” said lead author, Dr. Joshua Brody, director of the lymphoma immunotherapy program. “This method could also increase the success of other immunotherapies such as checkpoint blockade.”

Even though the medication is not as effective and not preventive as the flu shot, the medication is still referred to by the researchers as a vaccine because with its administration, the immune system of the patient is triggered to fight the disease. The treatment in this case teaches the body to recognize tumors and attack them.

The treatment was created directly inside the tumor by the researchers. To achieve this, a stimulant was injected into one tumor to recruit immune cells by the researchers. The tumor was then treated with a low dose of radiation and then a stimulant was injected to make the immune cells active. This procedure activated immune cells which then moved all across the body and killed tumors wherever they were found.

The researchers claimed that treatment of three of the patients, resulted in a shrinkage of not only the targeted tumor of the treatment but also other ones throughout the body. Those patients were therefore sent into remission.

“It’s really promising, and the fact you get not only treated areas, but areas outside the field [of treatment with radiation] is really significant,” said Dr. Silvia Formenti, chairwoman of radiation oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Despite being a promising cure to cancerous tumors, since the result was found only in three patients, there is need for the treatment to be conducted in larger trials before the researchers can approach the United States Food and Drug Administration for a review of the treatment and a possible clearance.

While identifying the results to be exciting, a word of caution about the need for further research was issued by Dr. Eric Jacobsen, clinical director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s lymphoma program.

“It’s definitely proof of concept, but larger studies are definitely needed and additional strategies to try to get more than three out of 11 patients to respond,” said Jacobsen, who is also developing a lymphoma vaccine, though with a slightly different approach.

“Generals don’t really fight wars, they make the plans,” Brody said.

(Adapted from CNBC.com).