mcscom t1_isjzcxd wrote on October 16, 2022 at 3:47 PM

Reply to comment by Wiggie49 in The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer by AdmiralKurita

All cancer have some mutations that would make them different from normal tissue. The question is just how targetable those mutations are by the immune system

Wiggie49 t1_isk18k8 wrote on October 16, 2022 at 4:00 PM

I thought that was all just visually different, like I thought on a microscopic level it looks the same to our immune system.

GWsublime t1_iska3b3 wrote on October 16, 2022 at 4:58 PM

No, our immune system can and does fight cancer, usually very successfully. Unfortunately it can be too slow and when it is you get to a point where the immune system can't keep up or can't access the cancerous tissue

mcscom t1_iskm9g2 wrote on October 16, 2022 at 6:14 PM

All cancers (so far) have some amount of DNA changes in them that make them different from the rest of the body. The number and type of DNA mutations varies greatly depending on the type of cancer. Whether and how much these changes are "detectable" by the immune system varies as well, but theoretically it should be possible to design vaccines or other immune therapies for any type of cancer.

Wiggie49 t1_ismq6u2 wrote on October 17, 2022 at 3:15 AM

Yeah I was never that great at microbiology, good to kno tho