The Guardian: ‘Off the charts’: the key breakthroughs giving new hope in treating cancer. World’s largest cancer conference in Chicago shares ‘impressive’ findings in vaccines, drug trials and AI. At the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference, doctors, scientists and researchers shared new findings on ways to tackle the disease.The event in Chicago, attended by about 44,000 health professionals, featured more than 200 sessions focused on this year’s theme, The Art and Science of Cancer Care: From Comfort to Cure. Here is a roundup of the key studies…After decades in development, cancer vaccines now show signs of efficacy and potential to help patients fend off the disease for good. The world’s first personalised mRNA cancer vaccine for melanoma halves the risk of patients dying or the disease returning, according to trial results doctors described as “extremely impressive”. Patients who received the vaccine after having a stage 3 or 4 melanoma removed had a 49% lower risk of dying or the disease recurring after three years, data presented at the conference showed. A second trial found cancer vaccines can significantly improve survival for breast cancer patients after surgery. Meanwhile, with more vaccine trials launching globally, the NHS announced that thousands of patients in England will be fast-tracked into the studies as part of a world-first “matchmaking” scheme, called the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad. Under the scheme, patients will gain immediate access to clinical trials for vaccines that experts say represent a new dawn of treatments for cancer…”