A woman from Florida has recovered from breast cancer after using a new trial vaccine for just seven months.
Lee Mercker, a resident of Jacksonville, was shocked after being diagnosed with DCIS stage zero, an early stage of breast cancer, in March this year.
“I was healthy,” Mercker told Fox 35. “That’s why I was mad. I was stunned, and everyone around me was more mad and more stunned.”
She was presented with two options from medics at the Mayo Clinic.
According to the doctors, Mercker could follow the typical treatment process or could try a clinical trial for a new anti-cancer vaccine.
Mercker opted for the latter. “I signed on the dotted line that day,” the woman told WLTV.
The new vaccine, a shot, was administered over a period of 12 weeks – and it showed magical results against the deadly disease.
“They always took your blood, you had a physical, they’d make your shot right there on the spot for you,” Mercker explained. “It was three shots, all in a row, alternating arms, four shots, two weeks apart.”
Speaking to WLTV, Dr. Saranya Chumsri, from the Mayo Clinic, said of the vaccine: “It’s supposed to stimulate a patient’s own immune response so that the immune cells like t-cells would go in and attack the cancer.”
Soon after receiving the vaccine, Mercker’s tumor shrank, and her immune system became active in its fight against the cancer cells.
The woman also undertook a double mastectomy to make sure she was totally free of cancer.
Seven months after being diagnosed with the condition, Mercker is doing great. “I feel like I walked on the moon,” the woman told Fox 35.
“I worked in an industry with tons of women and I saw all kinds of stories, and it’d just be really nice to stamp this [breast cancer] out.”
The clinic is currently testing the vaccine on several other patients, including those with stage 4 breast cancer.
Surprisingly, the vaccine is yielding positive results in almost all cases.
Keith Knutson, another doctor from the Mayo Clinic, told Fox 35 that he will soon test another vaccine that will act as a “flu shot against breast cancer,” preventing the condition from happening in first place.
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