DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA — Donna Gustafson, a 72-year-old resident of Delray Beach, Florida, became the first person to receive a personalized mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer after enrolling in a clinical trial in February 2020. Her doctors informed her about the trial the day before she was scheduled to begin chemotherapy, which followed surgery to remove Stage 2 cancer from her pancreas.

Gustafson's diagnosis came during a trip to Australia. She had taken a 22-hour flight from Florida, and two days into the trip her skin developed a yellow hue of jaundice. Believing she was dehydrated, she went to the emergency room for fluids, where Australian doctors diagnosed her with pancreatic cancer.

"They were very adamant about it. This is absolutely pancreatic cancer," Gustafson said.

She and her husband, Ed, took the next flight home. Nine days after the diagnosis, she underwent surgery to remove the tumor.

In the clinical trial, patients received personalized mRNA vaccines based on genetic material from their own tumor cells following tumor-removal surgery, with standard postoperative chemotherapy administered after vaccination. The vaccines are designed to harness a patient's immune system to eliminate lingering, undetected cancer cells and prevent new tumor growth before recurrence.

"Traditional immunotherapies can be very effective, but they only work in about 20% of all cancers, leaving the majority of cancers without immune-based treatments," said Dr. Vinod Balachandran, director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Less than 13% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live for more than five years. There is no routine screening for the disease comparable to colonoscopy or mammography, and symptoms typically do not appear until the disease is advanced. Approximately 20% of pancreatic cancer cases are operable, and operability is required for eligibility in pancreatic cancer vaccine trials.