Cancer Vaccines

The new thing in cancer prevention and treatment is cancer vaccines.

There are 2 main groups of cancer vaccines, one group is to prevent cancer and the second group is to cure those who already have cancer.

The first group of cancer prevention vaccines in the market are for liver cancer and cervical cancer. The routine hepatitis B vaccine which the government gives to all newborn is actually a liver cancer vaccine. This vaccine prevents hepatitis B which in turn would prevent liver cancer as hepatitis B infection would cause liver cancer.

Recently, there is this new cervical cancer vaccine which prevents cervical cancer. However, the cost of this vaccine is quite expensive. Its about US $100 per dose and each women would need 3 doses to prevent cervical cancer.

There are new vaccines which treat existing cancer, like lung cancer, prostrate cancer, skin cancer etc. Unfortunately, for this group of vaccines, none of them are available in the market yet as they are still undergoing clinical trials. I will provide more info on cancer vaccines in future postings.