COVID vaccines have often been at the center of discussions, mostly for their side effects and potential risks. But this time the spotlight is on something positive - COVID vaccine is being linked to prolonging the life of cancer patients. But not every COVID vaccine, only mRNA.Scientists at the University of Florida and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered something very important. They found that people with serious lung or skin cancer who got an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine around the time they started their anti-cancer treatment, which is immunotherapy, lived much longer than those who didn't get the shot. Specifically, the vaccine seemed helpful if it was given within 100 days of starting the cancer treatment.Also Read: Is Bubble Tea Putting Your Health at Risk? Experts Warn About Lead ExposureThis discovery is a huge leap forward in the research to use mRNA technology—the same tech used for the COVID shots—to teach the body's natural defense system to fight cancer. It builds on previous studies and brings us closer to a potential universal cancer vaccine that could make existing cancer drugs work even better for more people.Can mRNA Vaccine Cure Other Diseases Than COVID?The new study, which was written about in the journal Nature, comes from eight years of work by Dr. Sayour on mixing tiny fat bubbles with mRNA. mRNA is a natural material in your body that carries the blueprint for making proteins.Dr. Sayour's lab previously had an unexpected finding: to make the immune system strongly attack a tumor, they didn't have to target a specific piece of the cancer. Instead, they could just boost the immune system as if it were getting ready to fight a virus. This led to an experimental mRNA shot (similar to the COVID vaccines) that, when mixed with standard cancer drugs, strongly fought tumors in mice.This success made another team member, Dr. Adam Grippin, wonder: Could the standard COVID-19 mRNA vaccine act the same way as their experimental "nonspecific" one? To find out, the researchers looked at the medical records of patients with advanced lung and skin cancers treated between 2019 and 2023.What Are mRNA Vaccines And Which Ones Are Approved For Usage? The Mayo Clinic explains that the mRNA vaccine gives your cells a set of instructions on how to build the harmless spike protein that is on the COVID-19 virus. The vaccine sends the mRNA into your muscle and your muscle cells or other defense cells read these instructions and start making the spike protein. This is how your body prepares to protect you from the virus. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are both mRNA vaccines available in the US.Also Read: Not All Antidepressants Affect Your Body The Same; Here’s What You Need To Know About Side EffectsHow Have mRNA Vaccines Helped Our Health?These findings come from checking the medical files of over 1,000 patients. It's important to know that this is only the first look at the information. Scientists must confirm these results in a strict new study called a randomized clinical trial. If the results hold up, this study could change cancer treatment forever.The study clearly shows how powerful mRNA medicines are. The findings also point to an unexpected benefit from the government's quick push for COVID-19 vaccines (called Operation Warp Speed), showing how that effort continues to help save American lives.The data analysis showed that getting a COVID mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting cancer drugs was linked to significantly longer lives. This was most true for patients whose bodies weren't expected to fight their tumors very well on their own.For 180 advanced lung cancer patients who got the vaccine, the average survival time was nearly doubled, going from 20.6 months to 37.3 months, compared to patients who didn't get the shot. For patients with widespread skin cancer (melanoma), the average survival went up from 26.7 months to somewhere between 30 and 40 months. Importantly, getting non-mRNA shots, like the regular flu vaccine, did not change survival time.Should mRNA Vaccines Become Cancer Treatment?To make sure their findings were real, the UF researchers did experiments with mice, giving them immunotherapy drugs along with an mRNA vaccine for the COVID virus. These tests showed that the combination could make cancers that usually ignored treatment suddenly shrink and stop growing.The next necessary step is to launch a big clinical trial to confirm these findings. If they are proven true, scientists could design an even better, general-purpose vaccine to help cancer patients. For people with late-stage cancer, the extra time they gain from this kind of treatment would be priceless. Dr. Sayour believes that even a small boost in survival, like 5% or 10%, means a huge amount to these patients, especially if this treatment can work for many different kinds of cancer.
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