Women with recurrent ovarian cancer who receive drug decitabine before undergoing chemotherapy cope with cancer better than those receiving only therapy, a new study suggests, Newsmax Health reports.

According to a new study published in the journal Cancer Immunology Research and reported by Medical News Today, the combination of "chemoimmunotherapy" could give patients with ovarian cancer a new treatment option for the often fatal disease.

The research, led by Kunle Odunsi, M.D., of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, indicates the combination boosts the immune system's ability to target a tumor antigen — a foreign protein present in cancer cells — called NY-ESO-1.

The team recruited 12 women with epithelial ovarian cancer who did not benefit from multiple chemotherapy treatments. The women were given various doses of the drug decitabine and tracked to see if the medication would reprogram NY-ESO-1 and therefore trigger "vaccine-induced immunity."

Doxorubicin — a chemotherapy drug — was also given to the women after a week, while a cancer vaccine — made up of the NY-ESO-1 protein, montanide, known to boost the immune system and other proteins — after two weeks.

At the end of the study, more than half of the women were found to benefit and lived longer than expected.