Category: Vaccine

Congressman David Schweikert introduced a bill that would provide a prize for the successful development of a vaccine "to prevent, treat, or mitigate opioid, cocaine, methamphetamine, or alcohol use disorder."

The draft legislation, H.R. 7827, referred to the committee on March 26, would also require the health and human services secretary to give "priority review" for regulatory approval to any anti-drug vaccine candidate and reward the first successful applicant with public funds.

While vaccines are usually associated with providing increased immunity against pathogens, researchers are already studying whether they could use the same biological mechanisms to stop intoxicants from having an effect on the brain.

The introduction of a bill that hopes to accelerate that work comes at a time when opioidsespecially synthetic ones like fentanylare creating a growing health crisis in the U.S. that lawmakers are struggling to find ways to deal with. According to official figures, there were nearly 107,000 overdose deaths in 2021, around 66 percent of which were attributed to fentanyl.

"I actually have a fascination with synthetic biology technology as a way to disrupt," Schweikert, a Republican representing Arizona, told Newsweek of his motivation for the bill.

"The price of the synthetic opioid has just crashed," he said, "and yet when you meet with the substance abuse counsellors [and] the rehab centers, they almost always start the conversation with that what they deal with today is so different... that these synthetic drugs are very, very different from the drugs we knew a decade ago, or two decades ago."

As such, he hopes the prize he is proposing will ask the question of whether there was "an opportunity to add a tool and bring sobriety back to someone who is truly being crushed by these synthetic drugs."

Experts say that anti-drug vaccines are not only possible, butdepending on the substance they are aiming to counteractare potentially quite promising.

Dr. Thomas Kosten, a professor of psychiatry, pharmacology, neuroscience and immunology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who specializes in addiction medication and vaccines, said that jabs were possible for any abused substance except alcohol, "because making antibodies using a vaccine against alcohol would not be possible due to the small size of this molecule."

"Any antibody against alcohol would damage many body organs and systems because alcohol occurs on many proteins within your body," he told Newsweek.

Dr. Scott Hadland, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, who specializes in addiction, said that while he could not speak on the possibility of an anti-alcohol vaccine being developed, if one was it would be "really powerful" for treating alcoholism.

However, he said any producer would need to ensure "it doesn't cross-react with other things that might sometimes be used in clinical practice, like other medications that might have similar properties to alcohol."

Asked why he included alcohol in the bill's text, Schweikert said there were "a couple of very credible labs still working on an alcohol version" and he was "not going to engage in my arrogance of thinking I know what the future looks like." He added: "If it's a breakthrough, it's a breakthrough."

Scientists at several American universities are currently working to develop vaccines against fentanyl, while a team in Brazil is working on a jab to curtail the effects of cocaine.

According to the National Institutes of Health, in the same way a traditional vaccine stimulates an immune response that produces antibodies capable of binding to proteins on a pathogen's cell wall, these vaccines aim to prompt the body to produce antibodies that stick to drug molecules, making them too big to pass through the blood-brain barrier. This means they cannot cause a high or an overdose, instead being excreted by the body.

Kosten said, though, that the different drugs being targeted had so far yielded different efficacies for the vaccines being trialed. As a general rule, he said, "the more potent the drug, then the less of it that is abused and the more readily can a sufficient amount of antibody be generated from a vaccine to be a competitive inhibitor and hold the drug in the bloodstream."

Vaccines against cocaine and nicotine have already been developed and tested on humans, but Kosten said the antibody response they produced was "not sufficiently high in many humans to be clinically useful."

Meanwhile, vaccines against a highly potent opioid like fentanyl "is quite possible," the addiction vaccine expert said, as "a much smaller about of antibody is needed to bind all of the fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain."

However, he said that it was more difficult for candidate vaccines against heroin and other opioids to generate sufficient levels of antibodies to stop the drug overriding the blood-brain barrier "blockade" they create.

Asked to give a sense of how viable each of these potential jabs were, Kosten said one against fentanyl was "likely to be available within a few years," while ones counteracting the effects of cocaine and methamphetamines could be viable for at least half of the people who might be given them, who he noted "currently have no FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approved medications."

Hadland told Newsweek that even though vaccine acceptance "has been a bit of a challenge" since the coronavirus pandemic, who would want an anti-drug jab would depend partly on how long they worked for.

"Chances are the right patient is going to be somebody who is early in recovery and is at risk for relapse," he said, adding that families and teens with parents who have struggled with addiction may want to be vaccinated "as a way to insulate them against the potential that they do try opioids and have a problem with them."

The medical professor said that a vaccine for fentanyl would be "exceptionally helpful," but questioned whether it would also provide protection against other, similar synthetic opioids.

There is a clear need for effective treatments for drug addiction, and a number of anti-drug vaccine candidates in development that pharmaceutical producers could capitalize onso why is a cash prize for creating one necessary?

Schweikert said some of the laboratories working on these vaccines were not particularly well funded, but added that the "primary focus of the legislation is to speed up adoption through the FDA."

"If there is a breakthrough, if it has the efficacy, what are the tools that a policymaker in Congress has to help it get to the market, to get to the publicto get to those who need itas quickly and as efficiently as possible?" he explained. "So it's a combination of change in the priority stack at the FDA and then also the additional focus I think you get when you offer a prize."

The bill text says the prize money should be a billion dollars, subject to funding availability, but Schweikert said this was a "blank that is to be filled in." He said he was currently speaking to vaccine researchers, potential investors and addiction non-profits about how much they think is needed to give a potentially successful jab the boost it needs.

A critic might argue, though, that whatever amount of public funds it turns out to be would be better spent on existing prevention and treatment programs, which stakeholders have said are vastly underfunded.

But Schweikert argued access to resources "isn't a key issue." Rather, the problem was that "the tools we have right now are from a previous era; they were not ready for this world of synthetic opioids."

Hadland suggested the "devil was in the detail" in terms of where this funding came from. "Vaccines are exceptionally expensive to produce, and so I think we would not want to take those resources away from those other service we know are critical," he said. "If there's a way to have both, then absolutely both would be valuable."

From a practical standpoint, because of their potential limitations, anti-drug vaccines were "not a solution that is going to work for everybody, but there is going to be a subset of patients for whom this is a good option," Hadland said. "It's a tool in the toolbelt; it's not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution, but I think it's going to be something that some people absolutely will want."

"This is a big deal in society, and this [bill] is hopeful," Schweikert said. "When was the last time we had something around addiction that was actually hopeful? And that's one of the reasons for doing this: is we can't keep approaching addition [in] the same way."

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Read more:

Could a Vaccine Solve the Opioid Crisis? - Newsweek

A rapid rise in measles cases in the first months of 2024 threatens the United States' elimination status, a situation the nation hasn't faced since 2019, when prolonged outbreaks posed a similar problem, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

CDC scientists from the group spelled out the warning today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). In their analysis of measles activity from January 1, 2020, to March 28, 2024, they said cases in the first quarter of 2024 have risen 17-fold compared to the mean first-quarter average from 2020 to 2023.

As of the March 28 data cutoff, 97 cases had been reported to the CDC. In its latest update, which includes infections reported through April 4, the CDC confirmed 113 cases from 18 jurisdictions. Of 20 outbreaks involving 3 or more cases reported since 2020, 7 have occurred in 2024.

Maintaining measles elimination statuswhich helps reduce cases, deaths, and costsmeans that no outbreaks have persisted for 12 months or more in a setting where the surveillance system is working well.

The last threat to US elimination status occurred in 2019, which saw two prolonged outbreaks in undervaccinated communities in New York City and elsewhere in New York state.

Because of the brisk pace in activity in 2024 so far, more activities are needed to increase measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine coverage, especially in close-knit and undervaccinated communities, the CDC said. It said other steps are also needed to maintain measles elimination. "These activities include encouraging vaccination before international travel and rapidly investigating suspected measles cases."

Most cases are still considered imported; however, of those, 61% were in US residents who were eligible for vaccination but were unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccination status.

The CDC is also seeing a shift this year in the overseas regions where people were likely exposed. During the study period, the two most common World Health Organization (WHO) regions were the Eastern Mediterranean (Middle East) and Africa. However, six of the 2024 cases were reported to have originated in the European and Southeast Asia regionsa 50% increase from earlier in the study period.

Along with undervaccination in some of the US population, a global gap in measles vaccination is also fueling the rise in cases, the CDC said. According to global estimates, first-dose coverage declined from 86% in 2019 to 83% in 2022, leaving nearly 22 million children younger than 1 year vulnerable to the virus.

In related developments, the Detroit Health Department yesterday reported a measles case involving a 4-year-old child, the fifth case reported in Michigan this year.

The announcement didn't say how the child was exposed. The child's family is following isolation protocols, and no related cases have been reported, so far. The health department warned of potential exposure at three locations where the child was taken for medical care.

Health officials identified the suspected infection on April 3, and tests confirmed the case on April 9.

Elsewhere, the Chicago Department of Public Health reported 3 more cases this week, raising the city's total to 61, most of them linked to an ongoing outbreak at a migrant shelter.

Read the original post:

CDC: Spike in measles cases poses threat to US elimination status - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Adding a personalized anti-tumor vaccine to standard immunotherapy is safe and about twice as likely to shrink cancer as standard immunotherapy alone for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer, according to a clinical trial led by researchers at theJohns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Centerand its Convergence Institute.

The study will be published April 7 in Nature Medicine, with findings also presented at 1:30 p.m. PT at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Fewer than one in 10 patients survive five years post-diagnosis. Existing immune therapies such as PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitors, aimed at releasing restraints cancer cells place on the immune system, have limited effects.

A preliminary clinical trial led by Kimmel Cancer Center investigators shows that adding a personalized anti-tumor vaccine to PD-1 inhibitor therapy may improve patient outcomes. The study enrolled 36 patients with HCC. All patients received the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab in combination with a personalized anti-tumor vaccine. The most common adverse effect associated with the vaccine was mild injection site reactions. There were no serious adverse events. Nearly one-third of the patients treated with the combination therapy saw their tumors shrink-;about twice as many patients as seen in studies of anti-PD-1 therapy alone in HCC. About 8% had a complete response with no evidence of tumor left after the combination treatment.

The study provides evidence that a personalized cancer vaccine can enhance clinical responses to anti-PD-1 therapy. A larger randomized clinical trial will be needed to confirm this finding, but the results are incredibly exciting."

MarkYarchoan, M.D., lead author,associate professor of oncology at theJohns Hopkins University School ofMedicine

Decades of experience and research with cancer vaccines from study co-author Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D., deputy director of the Kimmel Cancer Center and the Dana and Albert "Cubby" Broccoli Professor of Oncology, and other visionary Johns Hopkins scientists have made the successful trial possible. Jaffee and her colleagues saw the potential of cancer vaccines early on and worked to overcome challenges to their development.

"We are at an exciting time in new therapy development. Personalized vaccines are the next generation of vaccines that are showing promise in treating difficult cancers when given with immune checkpoint therapy. Our Cancer Convergence Institute provided technology and computational tools to make the analyses possible," says Jaffee, who is also director of the Convergence Institute.

To make personalized cancer vaccines, scientists take tumor biopsy cells to identify cancer-associated genetic mutations in the tumor. The scientists use a computer algorithm to determine which of the mutated genes produce proteins the immune system can recognize. Then, scientists manufacture a personalized vaccine containing the DNA for the selected mutated genes. Each vaccine may include up to 40 genes. The vaccine helps the immune system recognize the abnormal proteins encoded in the selected genes and destroy cells producing them.

Combining the personalized vaccine with the PD-1 inhibitor provides a one-two punch to the tumor. The PD-1 inhibitor helps revive immune cells, called T-cells, in the tumor that have become exhausted and unable to destroy the tumor cells. The personalized vaccine calls in the cavalry, helping recruit a fresh set of T-cells that target the specific mutant proteins in the tumor.

When the research team evaluated tumor biopsy samples taken from the study participants after they received the vaccine, they found evidence that T-cells were created in response to the vaccine that travelled to the tumor and attacked tumor cells. They also found that patients who received vaccines targeting the greatest number of mutant proteins had the best responses. This finding may help scientists create even more effective personalized cancer vaccines.

Recent studies have demonstrated that personalized cancer treatments may prevent recurrence in patients who had surgery to remove skin or pancreas cancer tumors. The new study adds to our understanding, suggesting that personalized cancer vaccines may also help shrink or eliminate established tumors, and is therefore an approach that could be helpful across many types of cancers beyond liver cancer.

"The role of personalized cancer vaccines is expanding," Yarchoan says.

Additional study co-authors were Daniel H. Shu, Elana J. Fertig and Luciane T. Kagohara of Johns Hopkins. Other researchers contributing to the work were from the New Zealand Liver Transplant Unit at the University of Auckland in New Zealand; the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York; Personalis Inc. in Fremont, California; Confluence Stat in Cooper City, Florida; University of Central Florida College of Medicine in Orlando; and the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at The Wistar Institute and Geneos Therapeutics in Philadelphia where the vaccine platform was developed.

The trial was sponsored by Geneos Therapeutics.

Source:

Journal reference:

Yarchoan, M., et al. (2024). Personalized neoantigen vaccine and pembrolizumab in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma: a phase 1/2 trial.Nature Medicine. doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02894-y.

Read this article:

Personalized anti-tumor vaccine enhances immunotherapy for liver cancer - News-Medical.Net

Pharma giant Pfizer said on Tuesday that it plans to seek regulatory approval to expand the allowed use of its RSV vaccine, Abrysvo, for adults 18-59, following positive results from a last-stage clinical trial. There is currently no approved vaccine for adults under 59 years old who have an increased risk for the respiratory virus.

Will Tesla finally unveil a self-driving vehicle?

We are excited to address a significant unmet need, pending regulatory authority approval, as ABRYSVO has the potential to become the first and only RSV vaccine for adults 18 years and older, Pfizer Senior Vice President and Head of Vaccine Research and Development Annaliesa Anderson said in a press release.

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of respiratory illness among young infants and older adults. In the U.S., RSV is responsible for 60,000-160,000 hospitalizations and 6,000-13,000 deaths among older adults each year, according to Pfizer.

The pharmaceutical company launched its RSV vaccine last year, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved for adults older than 60 and pregnant woman as a way to protect their infants. The FDA also last year approved AstraZenecas RSV vax for infants.

In this new study, Pfizer tested its vaccine on 681 individuals between 18 and 59 years old who have chronic conditions that make them vulnerable to RSV. About 10% of that demographic lives with such a condition.

The trial found that the vaccine resulted in a similar immune response to its previous phase 3 trial of the drug for older adults. One month after taking the vaccine, participants developed at least four times increase in levels of neutralizing antibodies for the two primary types of RSV.

The news comes as Pfizer is trying to catch up with U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Its RSV vaccine for adults was approved by the FDA in May. The company is already undergoing priority review with the FDA to expand the approved use of its jab for adults 50-59 years old. The agency is expected to make a decision by June 7.

GSKs vaccine, Arexvy, generated 1.2 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in revenue for the company in 2023.

For comparison, Pfizers Abrysvo generated $515 million in revenue in 2023.

Read the original:

Pfizer RSV shot trial shows protection for adults 18 to 59 - Quartz

Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and its Convergence Institute have revealed promising results of a personalised vaccine for liver cancer in a clinical trial.

Results from the study were published in Nature Medicine and were recently presented at the American Association for Cancer Researchs annual meeting.

Recognised as the most common type of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths globally, with fewer than one in ten patients surviving five years after diagnosis.

Researchers took tumour biopsy cells from 36 HCC patients to identify cancer-associated genetic mutations in the tumour to manufacture a personalised vaccine containing DNA for selected mutated genes.

Involving 36 patients living with HCC, investigators added a personalised anti-tumour vaccine to Merck & Cos known as MSD outside the US and Canada PD-1 inhibitor therapy, Keytruda (pembrolizumab), a standard immunotherapy.

The personalised vaccine works by helping the immune system recognise abnormal proteins in the selected genes and destroy the cells producing them.

Sponsored by Geneos Therapeutics, results from the preliminary clinical trial demonstrated that nearly one-third of patients treated with the combination therapy saw their tumours shrink significantly, around twice as much as HCC patients receiving anti-PD-1 therapy alone in separate studies.

In addition, around 8% of patients had a complete response, with no evidence of tumour left after the combination treatment and no serious adverse events reported.

By combining the personalised vaccine with the PD-1 inhibitor, the immune cells known as T-cells are revived in the tumour to target the specific mutant proteins in the tumour.

Mark Yarchoan, associate professor, oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said: The role of personalised cancer vaccines is expanding and this study provides evidence that a personalised cancer vaccine can enhance clinical responses to anti-PD-1 therapy.

A larger randomised clinical trial will be needed to confirm this finding, but the results are incredibly exciting, added Yarchoan.

See original here:

US researchers reveal positive results of personalised vaccine for liver cancer - PharmaTimes - PharmaTimes

Pearl River's Pfizer is looking to expand its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine approval for Americans as young as 18.

The drug, Abryso, was approved for those over the age of 60 last year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say RSV is a common virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. Most people recover in a week or two, but RSV can be serious. Infants and older adults are more likely to develop severe RSV and need hospitalization.

Pfizer says a clinical trial showed people between the ages of 18 to 59 had an immune response similar to the trial results for older adults. The company says the vaccine was also well-tolerated and safe.

The results of the clinical trial have not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal yet, but Pfizer says it is planning to submit the data to the Food and Drug Administration.

Read the original post:

Pfizer seeks approval to expand RSV vaccine to adults 18 and older - News 12 Westchester

Diakonos Oncology reports that an interim analysis of a Phase I open label trial of its dendritic cell vaccine (DOC1021) showed substantially increased survival of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients beyond the expected median overall survival (mOS) of 12.7 months for patients receiving the standard of care (SOC). The median overall survival for the trial of newly diagnosed GBM has not yet been reached with 12-month survival among evaluable patients currently is 88 percent.

The analysis was presented in a poster at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in San Diego. Twelve of 16 patients with newly diagnosed GBM remain alive with no serious adverse events attributable to DOC1021. As a result, DOC1021 has received Fast Track and Orphan Drug designations from the FDA.

These very encouraging results support our confidence in the potential for our dendritic cell vaccines to significantly improve the lives of patients with the most deadly cancers, said Mike Wicks, Diakonos CEO. DOC1021 is a first-of-its kind dendritic cell vaccine that represents an entirely new strategy for engaging a complete immune response against a patients cancer.

Findings from the ongoing analysis also reveal that with an average 12.9 months of follow up among the 16 newly diagnosed GBM patients enrolled in the study, median overall survival has yet to be reached. The company expects to begin Phase II trials of DOC1021 for GBM patients within the next year and is conducting two other clinical development programs in pancreatic cancer and angiosarcoma.

Both newly diagnosed and recurrent GBM patients were enrolled in the Phase I study and received DOC1021 across four dose levels following SOC treatment. The first GBM patient enrolled in October 2021 survived more than two years. Each of the next four patients enrolled survived more than 15 months, and two remain alive at 20.3 months and 17.5 months, despite receiving less than 25 percent of the projected therapeutic dose.

In addition, Diakonos trial has been commended for its inclusive trial design, according to company officials. Fifty-six percent of patients enrolled likely would have been excluded from other GBM clinical trials due to issues such as progression prior to treatment, subtotal resection status, or advanced age.

Despite their challenging prognosis, notes Wicks, these patients saw a statistically significant improvement in expected overall survival of 7.7 months for similar patients. The trial did exclude patients with IDH mutation status as such patients are no longer classified as GBM.

Diakonos dendritic cell vaccines are made with a patients own immune cells combined with RNA and proteins prepared from a sample of their tumor. This approach allows targeting of the complete cancer antigen profile without any genetic modification.

Original post:

Dendritic Cell Vaccine Improves Survival Compared to Standard of Care in Phase I Trial for Glioblastoma - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

TUESDAY, April 9, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- The novel viral-based personalized cancer vaccine, TG4050, which encodes up to 30 patient- and tumor-specific sequences is feasible and safe for patients with resected head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 5 to 10 in San Diego.

Ana I. Lalanne, Ph.D., from the Institut Curie in Paris, and colleagues randomly assigned eligible patients with completely resected stage III or IV human papillomavirus-negative squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, or larynx to receive TG4050 immediately (arm A; 17 patients) or upon relapse (arm B; 16 patients) after completion of standard-of-care adjuvant radio-chemotherapy.

The researchers found that TG4050 adverse events were mild to moderate, and most of them were injection site reactions. No relapse occurred in arm A, and three patients relapsed in arm B after 6.2, 8.8, and 18.5 months, after a median follow-up of 16.2 months. T-cell responses were de novo or amplification of preexisting responses (82 and 18 percent, respectively). There was a median of six vaccine responses observed. An effector memory phenotype was indicated in cytometric characterization of vaccine-specific T-cells. In five patients, T-cell receptor sequencing of blood T-cells evidenced expansion of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte clonotypes. In the blood of two patients, the most expanded vaccine-specific CD8 T-cells represented oligoclonal expansions expressing an effector phenotype.

"Our findings indicate that TG4050 is safe and promotes an immune response against several neoantigens in most patients," coauthor Olivier Lantz, M.D., Ph.D., also from the Institute Curie, said in a statement.

Several authors disclosed ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Transgene, which sponsored the study and jointly funded it with NEC.

Press Release

More Information

Go here to read the rest:

AACR: Novel Personalized Vaccine Feasible for Head and Neck Cancer - HealthDay

I often had to call out-of-hours doctors, and in 2015 while on my honeymoon in the United States, I ended up paying $600 to see a doctor who prescribed me antibiotics. The combination of being a newlywed, being in and out of the pool, and drinking alcohol had left me doubled over with cramps and nausea. Ive had to do the same (call out of hours doctors) on more recent holidays with our son, who is five, when Ive had another bout. Its a big expense and it stops you enjoying your holiday when you just want to be playing in the pool with your family, and having a few drinks, but its hard when youre worried about it leading to another UTI. I started to become so stressed over holidays I simply preferred not to go away at all.

Over the years Ive learnt through trial and error what helps me. Meditation and breathing exercises have really helped, mostly because they help regulate the nervous system and reduce stress, she says. For that I also take Bach Remedies [a natural flower remedy which claims to calm nerves and reduce anxiety]. Diet-wise, anything acidic isnt great for me, so I tend to avoid things like tomatoes, coffee and alcohol, especially white wine. Ive tried aloe vera supplements, which helps, and drinking cranberry juice, which helps a little, but drinking plenty of water is the main thing. Peeing before and after sex also helps prevent a recurrence, as does showering after sex.

Davina says her UTIs have finally calmed down now shes in her 40s, which she says could be due to hormonal changes. However, if youre having regular UTIs then this new vaccine could potentially help so many people. For a long time I felt like my pain and suffering were just being dismissed as just one of those things women have to put up with.

A UTI is a bacterial infection caused by bacteria entering the urinary tract.

Symptoms include a burning pain when you urinate, an urgent and frequent need to urinate, feeling like you need to even when your bladder is empty, pain in the lower abdomen and back, a general feeling of being unwell and fatigue; and in older people a UTI can cause a dementia-like condition called delirium.

UTIs can lead to cramps and nausea and can also carry a small risk of sepsis. Both men and women can get UTIs, although women are overwhelmingly affected (getting UTIs up to 30 times more than men) and they get them more often, largely because a womans urethra, which is the tube that goes from the bladder to where urine comes out of the body, is shorter than a mans so bacteria is more likely to enter it.

Antibiotics are often used to treat UTIs, but they can become less effective over time because the bacteria can become resistant to them.

Originally posted here:

I've been pumped full of antibiotics to treat UTIs a vaccine would be a game-changer - The Telegraph

This article has been reviewed according to ScienceX's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

trusted source

proofread

close

Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) can be prevented for up to nine years in more than half of people given an oral spray-based vaccine and is a potential alternative to antibiotic treatments, finds research.

Initial results from the first long-term follow-up study of the safety and effectiveness of the MV140 vaccine for recurrent UTIs are presented this weekend at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris.

They show that in both men and women with recurrent UTIs, 54% of study participants remained UTI-free for nine years after the vaccine, with no notable side effects reported. Full results of the study are expected to be published by the end of 2024.

UTIs are the most common bacterial infection. They are experienced by half of all women and one in five men and can be painful and uncomfortable. Recurrent infections, needing short-term antibiotic treatment, develop in between 20 to 30% of cases. With antibiotic resistant UTIs now on the rise and drugs becoming less effective, new ways of preventing and treating these infections are needed.

Carried out by clinicians at the UK's Royal Berkshire Hospital, this long-term follow-up looked at the safety and efficacy of the MV140 vaccine in 89 patients originally treated privately at The Urology Partnership Reading.

MV140 is a new vaccine for recurrent UTIs and is administered with two sprays of a pineapple-flavored suspension under the tongue every day for three months. While researchers have previously studied MV140's short-term safety and effectiveness, this is the first long-term follow-up study to report globally.

Dr. Bob Yang, Consultant Urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who co-led the research, said "Before having the vaccine, all our participants suffered with recurrent UTIs, and for many women, these can be difficult to treat. Nine years after first receiving this new UTI vaccine, around half of participants remained infection free.

"Overall, this vaccine is safe in the long term and our participants reported having fewer UTIs that were less severe. Many of those who did get a UTI told us that simply drinking plenty of water was enough to treat it.

"This is a very easy vaccine to administer and could be given by GPs as a 3-month course. Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life. While we're yet to look at the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, this follow-up data suggests it could be a game changer for UTI prevention if it's offered widely, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments."

In their original trial, patients were initially followed-up for 12 months and data from the women in the cohort was published in BJU International in 2017. For their nine-year follow-up study, the researchers analyzed data from the electronic health records of their original cohort. They interviewed participants about their experience of UTIs since receiving the vaccine and asked them about side effects.

Forty-eight participants remained entirely infection free during the nine-year follow-up. The average infection-free period across the cohort was 54.7 months (four and a half years)56.7 months for women and 44.3 months, one year less, for men. 40% of participants reported having repeat doses of the vaccine after one or two years.

Gernot Bonkat, Professor of Urology at the Alta Uro Medical Centre for Urology in Switzerland, and the EAU Chairman of Guidelines on Urological Infections, said, "These findings are promising. Recurrent UTIs are a substantial economic burden and the overuse of antibiotic treatments can lead to antibiotic-resistant infections.

"This follow-up study reveals encouraging data about the long-term safety and effectiveness of the MV140 vaccine. Further research into more complex UTIs is needed, as well as research looking at different groups of patients, so we can better optimize how to use this vaccine.

"While we need to be pragmatic, this vaccine is a potential breakthrough in preventing UTIs and could offer a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatments."

Developed by the Spain-based pharmaceutical company Immunotek, MV140 contains four bacterial species in a suspension with water. It is available off-license in 26 countries.

Participants in the trial were all aged over 18 years and were UTI-free when they were initially offered the vaccine. None of the participants had other urinary abnormalities such as catheters, tumors or stones. The follow-up study included 72 women and 17 men and outcomes were self-reported.

More information: Assessing the long-term efficacy and safety of Uromune bacterial vaccine in the initial cohort: A 9-year study in the UK for treating recurrent urinary tract infections in men and women by Kanabar S., Foley S., Yang B. is presented at EAU24

Original post:

Oral vaccine for UTI is potential alternative to antibiotics, finds 9-year study - Medical Xpress