US researchers report prototype vaccine development that could prevent breast cancer in humans

A first-of-its-kind vaccine to prevent breast cancer has shown overwhelmingly favorable results in animal models, according to a study by researchers at the US Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute. The researchers - whose findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine on-line over the weekend - are now planning to conduct trials of the drug in humans, although they warn that it could be some years before the vaccine is widely available to people.

The researchers found that a single vaccination with the antigen alpha-lactalbumin prevents breast cancer tumors from forming in mice, while also inhibiting the growth of already existing tumors. Enrollment in human trials could begin next year. If successful, it would be the first vaccine to prevent breast cancer.

'We believe that this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines have prevented many childhood diseases,' said Vincent Tuohy, the study's principal investigator and an immunologist in Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute.'If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental. We could eliminate breast cancer,' he stated.