Medical advances in the new year could have a huge impact on world health.

Vaccines, new regulations and cheaper drugs are just some of the medical advances to come.

Like other vaccines, cancer vaccines use a chemical marker of a disease (in one case, a virus; in another, a malignant tumor) to train a person’s immune system to fight the disease.
But unlike vaccines for the flu or chicken pox, which are preventive, “we almost uniformly vaccinate after cancer is there,” Kwak said.
Some cancer vaccines in development could be administered to many people, while others – including Kwak’s vaccine for follicular lymphoma – would have to be tailored to each patient’s tumors.

There is a lot to look forward to and more choices will be one of the biggest drivers of change and improvement.