His name is Alfredo, he is 71 years old and is the first Italian patient to receive the experimental mRNA cancer vaccine for the treatment of melanoma.
The dose was administered to him this morning at the Pascale Tumor Institute in Naples, where the man has been followed since last September by the oncologist Paolo Ascierto.
Alfredo, a general practitioner from Molise, is participating in the phase three study on Moderna's vaccine, the last step before the product can be approved by regulatory authorities.
"Today is a great day - declares Ascierto - it will take a few years before we have the results of this last phase", he specifies, "our hope is to be able to offer a new and more effective therapeutic option to as many patients as possible".
Alfredo De Renzis, 71 years old, had no doubts when in December he was offered the first dose of mRNA cancer vaccine administered in Italy. "I immediately accepted", he says. "It seemed to me to be my duty as a doctor, to contribute to research, but also because I trust in this treatment. I have never been afraid - he assures - I am calm, perhaps even lucky, because immunotherapy has not brought me particular side effects".
From Carovilli, a small village in the province of Isernia, Alfredo is a general practitioner. Married with 2 children, 2 years ago he discovered that behind a skin neoplasm there was a melanoma. After initial treatments in Isernia, he arrives in Naples, in the department headed by Paolo Ascierto at the Pascale Tumor Institute. In September of last year, the patient developed inguinal lymph node metastases. Operated on in November by Alfonso Amore of Corrado Caracò's team, Alfredo began treatment with pembrolizumab as part of the V904 study on December 15. Almost simultaneously with the start of immunotherapy, he was offered to join the phase 3 trial on Moderna's first mRNA vaccine. It is the last step of clinical experimentation before the product can be authorized by regulatory authorities. However it goes, Alfredo is writing a piece of the history of the fight against cancer.