本集内容

New hope for brain cancer patients 个性化疫苗给脑肿瘤病人带来新希望

学习要点

有关 “medicine 医学” 的词汇

边看边答

Which two things are used to make the personalised vaccine?

文字稿

This is a glioblastoma. It was found three years ago in Nigel's brain. Now all traces appear to have gone.

这是一个恶性胶质瘤，三年前在奈杰尔的大脑里被发现。但现在肿瘤的所有痕迹似乎已经消失了。

Nigel is a patient at London's King's College Hospital. And one of more than 300 volunteers on a trial of a personalised vaccine.

奈杰尔是伦敦国王学院医院的一名病人，也是三百多位自愿参加一项个性化疫苗试验患者中的一员。

The trial extended average survival from 17 to 23 months. One in three patients survived for 40 months. And a few are still alive seven years on.

这个试验将患者的平均存活时间从17个月延长到了23个月。平均每三位患者中有一位存活了40个月。还有一些患者七年过后仍存活。

So how does the treatment work?

那么这个治疗方法是如何起作用的呢？

First surgeons remove the patient's tumour. They mix it with cells from their immune system. Once outside the brain, the tumour cannot hide from the body's defences. And the immune cells learn to attack it.

首先，外科医生切除病人的肿瘤。接着把肿瘤和病人免疫系统中的细胞混合。肿瘤在被切除后就不能躲避病人自身的防御系统，从而免疫细胞将学会如何抵抗它。

These cells are turned into a personalised vaccine, individual to each patient who receives it.

这些细胞被制成个性化疫苗，每位患者都有自己的疫苗。

Kat Charles was not part of the trial. So she paid to have the vaccine privately three years ago.

凯特·查尔斯没有参与这个试验。所以她三年前开始自己付钱购买疫苗。

Every six months, she has a top-up injection. And so far, there's no trace of her tumour.

每六个月，她就会注射一针。到目前为止，没有发现肿瘤的痕迹。

3,000 people a year in the UK are diagnosed with glioblastoma. So an effective immunotherapy vaccine would be a significant advance in the treatment of brain cancer.

在英国，每年有三千多人被诊断患有恶性胶质瘤。因此，有效的免疫治疗疫苗将是脑肿瘤治疗的重大突破。

词汇

vaccine 疫苗

treatment 治疗，疗法

tumour 肿瘤

immune system 免疫系统

cells 细胞

你知道吗？

Learning a second language might boost brain power. The US researchers from Northwestern University say bilingualism is a form of brain training - a mental "work out" that fine-tunes the mind.

学习第二语言可能提高脑力。来自美国西北大学的研究人员称双语是一种大脑训练的形式，一种 “脑力锻炼”，可以微调大脑。

问题答案

It is made from the patient's tumour and cells from their own immune system.