With cancer rates increasing across the United States, especially for women, the thought of a breast cancer vaccine brings hope to many people. Does this latest vaccine, now available only through clinical trials, show promise?

New York - With cancer rates increasing across the United States, especially for women, the thought of a breast cancer vaccine brings hope to many people. Does this latest vaccine, now available only through clinical trials, show promise?

The idea and development of a vaccine for breast cancer is a relatively new idea. Although vaccines effectively fight many serious infections like polio and measles, they have yet to prove their ability to prevent cancer. One hurdle is that cancer is very different from other types of infections. Cancer progresses fast, as more and more abnormal cells start multiplying and making new variations on each other. The hope for this cancer vaccine is that it will create antibodies that will destroy any cancer cells currently inside the body as well as any new cancer cells that may appear.

This latest breast cancer vaccine, licensed under the name NeuVax, is given by injection under the skin and treats women with tumors that create a protein called HER-2. These tumors grow faster and recur more often than tumors that do not carry this particular protein. Preliminary studies suggest that it may reduce the risk of death for most patients by half. Only 168 women participated in the study, but if additional studies replicate the same success rates, the vaccine will move on to the next stage, and hopefully win FDA approval; this process could take years. Once successful, this vaccine could provide benefits to about thirty percent of women with breast cancer.