A second-generation melanoma vaccine developed at UVA Cancer Center improves long-term survival for melanoma patients compared with the first-generation vaccine, new research shows. Interestingly, the benefit of the second-generation vaccine was greater for male patients than female patients. That finding could have important implications for other cancer vaccines, the researchers say.

The vaccine developers, led by Craig L. Slingluff Jr., MD, found that they could enhance the effectiveness of their melanoma vaccine by simultaneously stimulating important immune cells known as “helper T cells” to recognize melanoma proteins, in addition to stimulating killer T cells against melanoma. This boosted patient survival and helped prevent reoccurrences of the cancer.

The researchers are not sure why the approach was more effective in men, but biologic sex is emerging as an important factor in outcomes of patients with melanoma, in particular with immune therapies. The findings support the importance of understanding how best to benefit women and well as men with effective immunotherapies.

“These findings support the promise of this second-generation melanoma vaccine for prolonging survival of patients after surgery for high-risk melanoma,” said Slingluff, a surgical oncologist and translational immunologist at UVA Health and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. “We hope that we can make this available to patients in addition to other effective immune therapies so that they may have even greater benefit than either treatment alone.”