Jennifer Davis first noticed a lump in her breast in 2018 and underwent a biopsy, which ruled out cancer.
But when the lump got greater and doctors conducted a second biopsy, it got here back positive for triple-negative breast cancer.
That’s when the 46-year-old nurse and mother of three from Ohio began her long and arduous cancer journey.
Triple-negative breast cancer, or TNBC, is something that “I didn’t know so much about once I was diagnosed,” Davis told Yahoo Life, “but going through all the things, you learn a lot.”
One among the primary things Davis learned is that TNBC makes up about 15% of all breast cancer cases, and is especially difficult to treat.
It’s also one of the aggressive types of breast cancer because it grows quickly — and TNBC recurs inside five years in about 42% of cases, which is roughly 3 times higher than other sorts of breast cancer.
Soon after having a double mastectomy — plus several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation — Davis learned in regards to the clinical trials of a breast cancer vaccine, spearheaded by the late Dr. Vincent Tuohy of the Cleveland Clinic.
“My [health care] team informed me of the vaccine that Dr. Tuohy had been studying for a very long time,” Davis said of the Cleveland Clinic trials. “In order that was lucky.”
As a nurse, Davis understood that clinical trials are “so essential,” adding “that’s how we advance medicine and make changes and someday, do away with breast cancer.”
Davis joined the vaccine trial with 15 other women who had also been diagnosed with TNBC. She received three injections, every one spaced two weeks apart.
“They did lab work prior to each injection,” she said. “I had no negative effects aside from lumps on the injection site — it was just like every other vaccine or shot that you just get.”
Davis received her third and final dose of the vaccine in November 2021. And up to now, there was no sign of the cancer coming back.
“It’s modified my life,” Davis said. “I don’t take into consideration reoccurrence each day.”
That’s a crucial goal, based on Amit Kumar, chairman and chief executive officer of Anixa Biosciences, which created the vaccine being tested by the Cleveland Clinic.
TNBC is “typically far more aggressive, so the final result for those women is just not superb,” Kumar said. He and his team at Anixa Biosciences hope the breast cancer vaccine can “eliminate the reoccurrence for those women and eventually, prevent the cancer from ever arising.”
Kumar added, “We eventually need to do clinical trials in other sorts of breast cancer. We would have the ability to eliminate breast cancer as a disease, just as we’ve eliminated polio [in the US] and smallpox.”
“The last word goal of this research trial is to develop a vaccine that might prevent breast cancer in people who find themselves in danger. It’s a lofty goal, but that may be what we might hope for,” Dr. G. Thomas Budd, of the Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute, said in a press release.
“There are quite a lot of steps to undergo before that. This may occasionally not work, but, , it’s one in every of those journeys of 1,000 steps that has to start out. So we’re taking the primary steps,” Budd added.
As Davis explains, when you receive a TNBC diagnosis, it stays with you. “I’m not going to say you don’t ever give it some thought,” she said.
But “the indisputable fact that it’s working” — based on Davis’s lab work and immune system response, plus the indisputable fact that the cancer hasn’t returned — “puts your mind comfortable so far as reoccurrence goes.”
She added, “It’s laid those thoughts to rest. And now I just really live a phenomenal life.”
Jennifer Davis first noticed a lump in her breast in 2018 and underwent a biopsy, which ruled out cancer.
But when the lump got greater and doctors conducted a second biopsy, it got here back positive for triple-negative breast cancer.
That’s when the 46-year-old nurse and mother of three from Ohio began her long and arduous cancer journey.
Triple-negative breast cancer, or TNBC, is something that “I didn’t know so much about once I was diagnosed,” Davis told Yahoo Life, “but going through all the things, you learn a lot.”
One among the primary things Davis learned is that TNBC makes up about 15% of all breast cancer cases, and is especially difficult to treat.
It’s also one of the aggressive types of breast cancer because it grows quickly — and TNBC recurs inside five years in about 42% of cases, which is roughly 3 times higher than other sorts of breast cancer.
Soon after having a double mastectomy — plus several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation — Davis learned in regards to the clinical trials of a breast cancer vaccine, spearheaded by the late Dr. Vincent Tuohy of the Cleveland Clinic.
“My [health care] team informed me of the vaccine that Dr. Tuohy had been studying for a very long time,” Davis said of the Cleveland Clinic trials. “In order that was lucky.”
As a nurse, Davis understood that clinical trials are “so essential,” adding “that’s how we advance medicine and make changes and someday, do away with breast cancer.”
Davis joined the vaccine trial with 15 other women who had also been diagnosed with TNBC. She received three injections, every one spaced two weeks apart.
“They did lab work prior to each injection,” she said. “I had no negative effects aside from lumps on the injection site — it was just like every other vaccine or shot that you just get.”
Davis received her third and final dose of the vaccine in November 2021. And up to now, there was no sign of the cancer coming back.
“It’s modified my life,” Davis said. “I don’t take into consideration reoccurrence each day.”
That’s a crucial goal, based on Amit Kumar, chairman and chief executive officer of Anixa Biosciences, which created the vaccine being tested by the Cleveland Clinic.
TNBC is “typically far more aggressive, so the final result for those women is just not superb,” Kumar said. He and his team at Anixa Biosciences hope the breast cancer vaccine can “eliminate the reoccurrence for those women and eventually, prevent the cancer from ever arising.”
Kumar added, “We eventually need to do clinical trials in other sorts of breast cancer. We would have the ability to eliminate breast cancer as a disease, just as we’ve eliminated polio [in the US] and smallpox.”
“The last word goal of this research trial is to develop a vaccine that might prevent breast cancer in people who find themselves in danger. It’s a lofty goal, but that may be what we might hope for,” Dr. G. Thomas Budd, of the Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute, said in a press release.
“There are quite a lot of steps to undergo before that. This may occasionally not work, but, , it’s one in every of those journeys of 1,000 steps that has to start out. So we’re taking the primary steps,” Budd added.
As Davis explains, when you receive a TNBC diagnosis, it stays with you. “I’m not going to say you don’t ever give it some thought,” she said.
But “the indisputable fact that it’s working” — based on Davis’s lab work and immune system response, plus the indisputable fact that the cancer hasn’t returned — “puts your mind comfortable so far as reoccurrence goes.”
She added, “It’s laid those thoughts to rest. And now I just really live a phenomenal life.”
