The treatment stimulates the body's immune system to attack cancer cells.
In studies in mice with various cancers — including lymphoma, breast cancer and colon cancer — the treatment eliminated cancer tumors in 87 out of 90 mice, even when the tumors had spread to other parts of the body, the researchers said.
"We've been able to cure a lot of cancers in mice for a long time," Police told Live Science.
(According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a "cancer vaccine" can refer to a treatment that's used to prevent cancer from coming back and destroys cancer cells that are still in the body.).
It contains a combination of two agents that stimulate T cells, a type of immune cell, to attack cancer.
Normally, the body's T cells recognize cancer cells as abnormal and will infiltrate and attack them.
This occurs because active T cells migrate to other parts of the body and destroy tumors that have spread. »