Vaccine being developed to fight tumors in liver cancer patients [Video]

In 2020, Jerry Fontana of Scranton, Pennsylvania, received horrible news: Doctors in Scranton diagnosed him with late-stage liver cancer. 

“I was very, very sick. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I was in total pain all the time,” Fontana said. “They told me to get my life in order. I have maybe 3 to 6 months to live.”

That was four years ago. 

Fontana went to Johns Hopkins’ in Baltimore and participated in an early-stage clinical trial led by Dr. Mark Yarchoan.

Researchers developed and tested a personalized vaccine aimed at shrinking tumors, used in combination with a type of immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma, which is the most common form of liver cancer.

“This is a cancer that normally, in most cases arises out of a sick liver. So patients with cirrhosis from any cause such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C. Increasingly you see particularly in the United States, patients with alcohol or fatty liver disease,” said Yarchoan.

Fontana, along with …