Stacy Erholtz, a resident of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, had battled myeloma – a type of blood cancer found in her bone marrow – for years. Despite extensive medical efforts to beat back the renegade cells attacking her bone marrow, including stem cell transplants and chemotherapy, she was found to have tumors throughout her body.

One of those tumors, given the moniker Evan by her kids, had grown in her forehead and was applying pressure on her brain and damaging her skull. She was losing her battle.

That was until she participated as half of a clinical trial of two patients who were to be administered a strong and modified measles vaccine. Injected with enough to vaccinate 10 million people (100 billion units), Erholtz began feeling ill within minutes. She developed a fever, shaking, vomiting and terrible headache.

A day and a half later, she told her doctor that Evan was shrinking. Several weeks later, not only had Evan shrank, but so had the rest of her tumors, until it was discovered that her cancer was in remission. These promising results offer hope in cancer treatment, and researchers are “cautiously optimistic” about their preliminary findings. They are expected to begin another, much larger clinical trial later this year.

The findings will need to be replicated through second and third stage clinical trials before medical professionals can truly begin celebrating. Often first stage clinical trials yield such promising results, only to have them falter upon further testing.

It is also important to note that the other participant in the trial with Erholtz did not respond to the injection as she did.

However, the fact that Erholtz went from such a dire prognosis to full remission does give researchers a lot to work with in further trials, because now they know that this type of outcome is possible.