How Tetanus Shots Help Fight Brain Cancer

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Researchers who have harnessed the body’s immune system to fight cancer have found a way to make the approach work even better, using an ordinary tetanus vaccine.

They used their double-vaccine approach to greatly lengthen the lives of patients with one of the deadliest types of cancer — the brain tumor glioblastoma.

“Patients with glioblastoma usually survive for little more than one year. However, in patients who received the immunotherapy, half lived nearly five years or longer from their diagnosis,” said Dr. John Sampson of Duke University Medical Center, who oversaw the study.

The team has been using what is…

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