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Could a flu shot double as a cancer fighter? A small early trial from Ohio State found that injecting a standard flu vaccine directly into melanoma tumors triggered a flood of immune cells — and in 3 patients, wiped out cancer entirely. It's preliminary, but the approach is cheap, simple, and already has researchers excited about pairing it with existing immunotherapy drugs.
Could a flu shot double as a cancer fighter?
Researchers at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center tried something unconventional: injecting a standard flu vaccine directly into melanoma tumors before surgery. The idea isn't to teach the immune system to recognize cancer — it's to disrupt the tumor's defenses. Many cancers survive by keeping immune cells at bay, and the flu vaccine essentially breaks that peace, drawing immune cells in and pointing them toward the tumor.
The trial was small (18 patients) and lacked a control group, so it can't prove the approach works. But the early signals were striking enough to turn heads at a cancer immunotherapy conference in Phoenix. Researchers are now testing the approach alongside checkpoint inhibitors like Keytruda and Opdivo, and other teams are exploring it in squamous cell carcinoma.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: If validated in larger trials, this approach could offer a low-cost, off-the-shelf alternative to expensive personalized cancer vaccines. Experts caution that similar early-stage treatments have failed in later testing — and the method only works on tumors accessible by needle.
