Breast cancer
There is a good news for every woman since there will be no worries anymore about breast cancer. A vaccine for breast cancer has been discovered by Dr Vincent Tuohy who is an immunologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. A protein called alpha-lactalbumin is present in up to 70 per cent of breast cancer tumours - and he believes that this estimate might be on the low side.
He produced the vaccine which stimulates the immune system to destroy the protein. He was hopeful that one day this vaccine would be used in the adult women for the prevention of the disease in the same way as we use vaccines to prevent children from childhood diseases.
There is one problem that alpha-lactalbumin is also found in the milk of women who are breast-feeding which means if the woman has been vaccinated, it is impossible for her to do breast-feeding because the immune system will combat the protein, but at least there is a way to eliminate breast cancer.
This vaccine will be given to young women especially those who have a family history of breast cancer and those above 40 years old (when the cancer is more likely to develop and when they are less to do breast-feeding). It is hoped that the vaccine will shrink tumours as the immune system targets the protein.
