A personalised cancer vaccine that uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to train the immune system to recognise and attack an individual patient’s tumour has reduced the relative risk of melanoma (skin cancer) recurrence or death by 42% when added to standard immunotherapy .

The results from a large international phase III clinical trial, involving 1,137 patients with high-risk melanoma whose tumours had been completely removed through surgery, are being described as a breakthrough in cancer therapies. The vaccine, intismeran autogene, remains investigational and is not yet available for routine clinical use.

According to Melanoma Institute Australia, the trial compared pembrolizumab alone with pembrolizumab combined with intismeran. At two years, 82.2% of patients receiving the combination remained free from recurrence, compared with 70% receiving pembrolizumab alone — an absolute difference of 12.2 percentage points. The combination also reduced the relative risk of distant metastasis or death by 38%.…