When treating lung and skin cancers, doctors frequently attempt to trigger the body’s immune system with drugs to help it recognize and attack cancer cells.

But in advanced stages of those diseases, patients often don’t respond well. Many have exhausted treatment options like radiation, surgery and chemotherapy.

A new study published in Nature offers hope for future patients in that dire situation.

Researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found that advanced lung and skin cancer patients who received a COVID-19 mRNA [m-R-N-A] vaccine within 100 days of immunotherapy drugs lived significantly longer than those who didn’t.

The vaccine appears to pump up the body’s immune system in a powerful way.

If the results are confirmed in future human trials, the discovery could eventually lead to a universal cancer vaccine.

The scientists have spent years studying how messenger RNA, which is present in all cells and delivers the instructions for making proteins, could be used to “wake” the body’s natural defenses.

Their new study found that receiving a COVID vaccine while undergoing immunotherapy was associated with a near doubling of median survival in the lung cancer patients, from more than 20 months to 37 months.

For the melanoma patients who received the vaccine, median survival increased from 26.7 months to a range of 30 to 40 months.

When a patient is told their cancer has advanced and other treatments have failed, the potential for more time to spend with loved ones and friends is a gift. It’s reason for hope, and that can make a difficult situation more bearable.