Adding a personalized mRNA vaccine to standard treatment could offer new hope for pancreatic cancer patients, a small yet promising study from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

The study followed 16 patients, including Barbara Brigham, who joined the trial after a routine scan discovered her early-stage pancreatic cancer.

Alongside surgery and chemotherapy, patients received a customized mRNA vaccine, designed using their own tumors. Unlike vaccines that aim to prevent disease in the first place, this one aims to help a patient's own immune system fight their cancer.

Brigham, a 74-year-old semi-retired librarian from Long Island, didn't hesitate to try it.

"The prognosis was not good when I was diagnosed," she said in a CBS News report. "You know you're going to have a limited amount of time. I just wanted to extend that time." 

The mRNA vaccine works by targeting genetic mutations found in pancreatic cancer, alerting the immune system to recognize and attack the tumor.

During surgery, doctors removed each patient’s tumor and sent it to the German biotechnology company BioNTech.

Patients then received their personalized vaccine along with immunotherapy and chemotherapy.

Because "the immune system is hardwired not to recognize our own body," it's typically challenging to teach it to recognize cancer, said surgical oncologist Dr. Vinod Balachandran, who specializes in pancreatic cancer treatment."

Of the 16 patients who participated in the study, eight had a strong immune response, and six of those eight remained cancer-free more than three years later, according to findings published Feb. 19 in the journal Nature.

In contrast, seven of the eight patients who didn’t respond saw their cancer return. The difference seemed to depend on whether the patient’s spleen was removed during surgery, as the spleen plays a critical role in immune function.

“It’s still hard to attribute causality to the vaccine alone,” Balachandran cautioned, emphasizing the trial’s small size.

Dr. Suneel Kamath, a gastrointestinal oncologist at Cleveland Clinic who reviewed the findings, pointed out that the survival rate of the patients in the trial is similar to the survival rate of those with early-stage pancreatic cancer treated with surgery and chemo. 

"This was a nice kind of proof-of-concept study to show that we can make a vaccine for this disease, and it really does actually create an immune response, and an immune response that lasts," Kamath told CBS News. "That's a very nice backbone to build off of." 

A larger, randomized trial is now underway, focusing on early-stage pancreatic cancer patients whose spleens are intact.

"The beauty of mRNA vaccines, as we saw with COVID development, is they're very fast to make. It easy to generate. Once you found a new target, it's very quick to make a vaccine for that particular target," Kamath said. 

"It's really exciting, because when we talk about curing cancer, it's not really a single monolithic disease," he added. "There are probably hundreds of different targets for every cancer type. And so the ability to make vaccines against a lot of those different targets very quickly is really powerful." 

Researchers are also exploring mRNA vaccines for melanoma and cancers of the kidney and lung, which they theorize may respond better because of their ability to mutate more.

For Brigham, the trial gave her exactly what she hoped for -- more time.

In the past few months, she welcomed her eighth grandbaby and celebrated her brother's 60th wedding anniversary.

"The trial was such a wondrous thing," she said. "It has just given me such a renewal in my life. Sometimes it's a little difficult, but it's worth it, absolutely worth it."