BUFFALO, N (WKBW) — There is great new promise for those battling breast cancer right here in our Western New York region.
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo is teaming with a newly-formed Pink Eraser Project working to accelerate the development of life-saving breast cancer vaccines.
The breast cancer vaccine is considered very promising after helping prevent recurrence in an earlier and much smaller clinical trial. Roswell is now one of six top cancer hospitals in the nation that will begin its own trial, and that’s creating incredible hope for breast cancer patients and survivors.
15-years ago Kathy Graim was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and was treated at Roswell. Now, as a breast cancer survivor, she's hoping she might be selected to participate in Roswell’s upcoming clinical trial to test a breast cancer vaccine.
"What does that mean for you?” Eileen asked. “It's incredible. It's such a medical breakthrough and to have this right here in our backyard is even more inspiring. To be able to offer such hope to individuals, breast cancer, of course, is a cancer that is so common and is on the rise,” replied Griam. “To be able to know that there's hope like this — I think that's just a wonderful breakthrough.”
The trial will enroll stage three and four breast cancer patients.
Dr. Shipra Gandhi, with Roswell, explained they plan to do a “randomized trial” to create more “concrete data” with hopes of creating larger results than the first smaller trials.
“So, what we are hoping is that the results we are seeing in the prior study, we'll be able to confirm those results in a larger number of patients in a more robust manner,” remarked Dr. Shipra Gandhi, assistant professor of oncology, Roswell Park.
“If somebody doesn't have to go through chemo, if somebody, let's say, doesn't have to go through radiation, it's just going to improve their quality of life,” Graim reflected. “The toll that it takes on your body, I found myself mid-day almost feeling like flu-like symptoms and could barely get out of bed for the rest of the weekend.”
Graim tells me she follows up each year at Roswell for tests and also continues taking preventative drugs, always holding her breath hoping the cancer does not return.
"You have that knot in your stomach you know in hoping that there's going to be no recurrence,” described Graim.
Graim tells me if there’s an opportunity for her to be eligible for the trial, she “would be the first to sign up.”
A Roswell spokeswoman tells me the clinical trial could probably begin in a few months.
