A Florida woman has been given a new lease on life after a trial vaccine successfully rid her body of its cancerous cells and she was officially declared breast cancer-free, People reported.
Sometimes you have to take the road less traveled.
After she was diagnosed with the deadly disease, Jacksonville resident Lee Mercker made the decision to join a new clinical trial for a vaccine that kills off the cancer cells, a decision that ultimately saved her life.
Back in March, Mercker learned that she had a very early stage of breast cancer.
“DCIS stage zero,” she told KVOA . “I’d never heard of it.”
The early stage meant that the cancer cells were in her breast ducts but hadn’t spread yet. This is actually the most common breast cancer diagnosis , as it affects some 50,000 women in the U.S. each year.
For Mercker, who is a health fanatic, the diagnosis came as a shock.
She said she regularly exercises and eats right, “but [cancer] can just knock on anybody’s door.”
“That’s why I was mad,” she told Fox 35 . “I was stunned, and everyone around me was more mad and more stunned.”
Mercker’s doctors at the Mayo Clinic said she had a few options after she was diagnosed.
She could either opt to go the traditional route and have a lumpectomy, which is where the cancer cells are removed or have a mastectomy where both breasts are removed.
A third option was also available.
She could sign up for a clinical trial for a potentially life-saving vaccine that could prevent the cancer cells from ever coming back.
“I signed on the dotted line that day,” Mercker said.
She was the very first patient to undergo human trials for the vaccine, which is a shot administered over 12 weeks.
“They always took your blood, you had a physical, they’d make your shot right there on the spot for you,” Mercker said. “It was three shots, all in a row, alternating arms, four shots, two weeks apart.”
However, the process was not an easy one.
As part of the trial, she also had to have a double mastectomy to make sure the cancer was completely out of her body.
The vaccine worked: Mercker’s tumor shrank and her immune system killed the cancerous cells in her body.
Just seven months after she was first diagnosed, she was declared cancer-free. She said she’s amazed at this breakthrough in modern medicine and hopes the vaccine will be able to help more women.
“I feel like I walked on the moon.”
“I worked in an industry with tons of women and I saw all kinds of stories,” she said, “and it’d just be really nice to stamp this [breast cancer] out.”
The Mayo Clinic is continuing to run human trials on the incredible vaccine and are including women at all different stages of breast cancer.
One stage four patient is reportedly showing positive results to the treatment.
In an interview with Forbes , one of Mercker’s doctors and Mayo Clinic researcher Keith L. Knutson said the drug still has a long way to go, but these results are very promising.
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And we could have these resources available to us sooner than we think.
“It is reasonable to say that we could have a vaccine within eight years,” said Knutson, “that may be available to patients through their pharmacy or their doctor.”
