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A new study has revealed that a common and usually harmless virus may positively influence how skin cancer patients respond to current treatments. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common virus that, while typically asymptomatic, is carried for life by around 50–60% of UK adults. In healthy individuals, CMV is kept in a dormant state by the immune system. However, this process profoundly reshapes how the immune system operates. The study explored how CMV affected the immune responses of 341 melanoma patients receiving immunotherapy, a form of cancer treatment that helps harness the immune system to recognize and fight cancer. This research...

Opinion Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with millions of new cases reported each year. In 2022 alone, approximately 20 million new cancer cases were diagnosed globally, and 9.7 million lives were lost to the disease. In India, the numbers are equally alarming, with around 100 out of every one lakh people diagnosed with cancer. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), more than 14 lakh cancer cases were estimated in 2023. [1 lakh = 0.1 million] Despite advancements in early detection and treatment, many myths surrounding cancer testing prevent people from undergoing timely...

Aserendipitous discovery may lead to a new way of fighting cancer – even tumors that are resistant to immunotherapy – by suppressing a mechanism that cancer cells use to evade the body’s immune system. “It all happened by coincidence,” explained study lead Professor Carmit Levy of Tel Aviv University, in a statement. “My lab studies both cancer and the effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun on our skin and body – both of which are known to suppress the immune system. Cancer suppresses approaching immune cells and solar radiation suppresses the skin's immune system.” “While in most cases,...

Findings from the international FORT-2 clinical trial showed a combination treatment including immunotherapy is safe and tolerable in patients with locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer. In urothelial bladder cancer, increased T cell infiltration has been correlated with longer patient survival. In many cases, fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) mutations are known to be drivers of bladder cancer development and progression. "In 2016, we published studies showing that the tumors with FGFR3 mutations have no T cell infiltration, which led to the logical conclusion that blocking the FGFR pathway could make more patients responsive to immunotherapy," said Sweis. Previous clinical...

A simple blood test that measures the number of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell in the body, may predict whether people who have relapsed multiple myeloma are going to respond well to CAR-T immunotherapy, according to research. The paper found patients who had an increase in absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) during the first 15 days after receiving a CAR-T infusion had a higher chance of a complete response and better progression-free survival than patients with a lower ALC at day 15. Knowing the treatment may not work allows doctors to try other options more quickly. Multiple myeloma is...

Immunotherapy before surgery for patients with metastatic melanoma appears to be especially successful. Some 59% of patients respond so well to this therapy that adjuvant treatment is no longer needed, according to the results of the NADINA study. Standard treatment for patients with metastatic skin cancer (melanoma stage III) consists of the removal of local lymph nodes, followed by a year of adjuvant treatment with immunotherapy or targeted therapy. "Despite that, we still see disease recurrence within three to five years in nearly half of these patients," Blank explains. The study showed neoadjuvant immunotherapy could induce a stronger and broader...

A short course of immunotherapy was found to be highly effective in a subset of patients with colon cancer. The treatment, which consisted of two cycles of immunotherapy prior to surgery, was effective in almost all patients. In two-thirds of patients, there were no longer any live tumor cells at the time of surgery. The patients' immune systems had cleaned up the cancer cells. These discoveries were made as part of the NICHE-2 trial. Patients with colon cancer with a specific genetic makeup, known as mismatch-repair deficient (dMMR) or microsatellite instable (MSI), were treated with one cycle of ipilimumab and...

Researchers have discovered that a certain type of chemotherapy improves the immune system's ability to fight off bladder cancer, particularly when combined with immunotherapy. These findings may explain why the approach, cisplatin chemotherapy, can lead to a cure in a small subset of patients with metastatic, or advanced, bladder cancer. Researchers also believe that their findings could explain why clinical trials combining another type of chemotherapy, carboplatin-based chemo, with immunotherapy have not been successful but others that use cisplatin with immunotherapy are successful. "We have known for decades that cisplatin works better than carboplatin in bladder cancer, however, the mechanisms...

Recent advances in treating multiple myeloma and other blood malignancies are providing improved outcomes—and hope—to patients worldwide. But treatment breakthroughs such as the immunotherapy drug teclistamab can lead to potentially lethal side effects, including cytokine release syndrome (CRS). These potential side effects have necessitated giving immunotherapy drugs in the hospital setting. Now, new research indicates that providing prophylactic treatment before immunotherapy can significantly reduce the rate of CRS in multiple myeloma patients. The study could eliminate the need to administer teclistamab and other immunotherapies in hospitals. In a key clinical study, teclistamab produced an overall response rate of 63% in...

Over the past decade, the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized treatment for patients with advanced lung cancer, helping many live longer lives and improving overall survival for the disease. However, an important question has remained unanswered: How long should a patient with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), who receives immunotherapy as part of their initial treatment, continue with treatment? A new retrospective cohort study suggests that it's reasonable to stop immunotherapy treatment at two years as long as their cancer hasn't progressed. The researchers found no statistically significant difference in overall survival between patients who stopped treatment...

In a phase 2 clinical trial of the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab, investigators found that 42 percent of patients with metastatic brain cancer benefited from the therapy, with seven patients in the trial surviving longer than two years. "There are very few effective treatments for patients with brain metastases. Our overarching objective is to find improved therapies for this patient population," said Priscilla K. Brastianos, MD. "With this trial, we investigated pembrolizumab, which is an immunotherapy for patients with brain metastases. We showed that pembrolizumab was tolerated and showed clinical benefit in the brain in 42 percent of patients, which...

One of the newest types of cancer drugs, immunotherapies called immune checkpoint inhibitors, has transformed the treatment of lung cancer over the last decade—dramatically improving the survival of some patients with the most common form of this disease, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, only about 20% of patients experience a benefit. A new study reveals key molecular features of lung tumors that could explain why some patients respond to these treatments while others do not. The team has pinpointed factors that may influence the response of NSCLC patients to immunotherapies that inhibit the PD-1 or PD-L1 proteins. The PD-1/PD-L1...

A regimen of pre-surgical immunotherapy and chemotherapy followed by post-surgical immunotherapy significantly improved event-free survival (EFS) and pathologic complete response (pCR) rates compared to chemotherapy alone for patients with operable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to Phase III trial results presented by researchers. The AEGEAN trial evaluated durvalumab given perioperatively, meaning therapy is given both before and after surgery. Participants on the trial received either pre-surgical (neoadjuvant) durvalumab and platinum-based chemotherapy followed by post-surgical (adjuvant) durvalumab or neoadjuvant placebo and chemotherapy followed by adjuvant placebo. "Throughout decades of research with adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy, we only succeeded in increasing...

Data from a national clinical trial shows that a striking 89% of patients with desmoplastic melanoma responded to immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) alone, suggesting that many patients could avoid the risk for toxicity from combination therapies and achieve cancer control with this approach to treatment. Desmoplastic melanoma is a subset of melanoma skin cancer that is caused by high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation damage and, therefore, a high number of tumor mutations that all contribute to aggressive disease development and growth. "Not all melanomas are the same, and they don't respond to treatments in the same degree," said Kari Kendra, MD,...

In mice with melanoma, probiotic bacteria travel from the gut and establish in tumors, where they directly stimulate immune cells to make cancer immunotherapy more effective, according to a study. The study showed Lactobacillus reuteri stimulates cancer-killing T cells by secreting a compound called indole-3-aldehyde, or I3A. When the researchers gave mice a diet rich in the amino acid tryptophan—which the bacteria convert to I3A—immunotherapy drugs had a stronger effect on restraining tumor size and prolonging survival. Several recent studies have found a link between probiotic supplements and immunotherapy response in melanoma patients. Compared to control mice, those given L....

Cancer treatment routinely involves taking out lymph nodes near the tumor in case they contain metastatic cancer cells. But new findings from a clinical trial show that immunotherapy can activate tumor-fighting T cells in nearby lymph nodes. "Immunotherapy is designed to jump start the immune response, but when we take out nearby lymph nodes before treatment, we're essentially removing the key locations where T cells live and can be activated," Spitzer said. Rather than the immunotherapy pumping up the T cells in the tumor, he said, T cells in the lymph nodes are likely the source for T cells circulating...

Immunotherapy has been shown to greatly improve survival rates for certain types of cancer. However, in some cases, it can lead to an over-activation of the immune system, which can be dangerous. In a recent review by researchers, potential therapies have been identified, which might make it possible to continue with immunotherapy even when facing severe side effects. For certain types of cancer, immunotherapy has greatly improved survival rates. However, in some patients, it can lead to a dangerous over-activation of the immune system. This rare side effect was only clinically recognized during regular clinical use rather than in clinical...

Patients with high-risk melanoma who received the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab both before and after surgery to remove cancerous tissue had a significantly lower risk of their cancer recurring than similar patients who received the drug only after surgery. "It's not just what you give, it's when you give it. The S1801 study demonstrates the same treatment for resectable melanoma given before surgery can generate better outcomes," Patel said. "In this case, we used the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab." The mechanism of action of immune checkpoint inhibitors such as pembrolizumab is often described as "taking the brakes off" the immune system's...

Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that colonizes the stomach lining and is found in more than half of the global population. Most people with an H. pylori infection have no symptoms, but it can result in gastric ulcers and even stomach cancer. A study has found that seropositivity for the bacteria—meaning a blood test has confirmed the presence of antibodies against a previous H. pylori infection—may decrease the response to immunotherapy in people with metastatic melanoma, an advanced skin cancer. Dr. Marion Tonneau led the study as part of a team under Dr. Bertrand Routy. They found that patients who...

New research finds that immune checkpoint (PD-1) inhibitors prior to surgery was strikingly effective for patients with localized mismatch repair-deficient or microsatellite instability-high (dMMR/MSI-H) colorectal cancer (CRC). Nearly all of the patients studied benefitted from neoadjuvant PD-1 inhibitors, with 1-of-4 experiencing complete response on clinical assessment. In addition to the short-term effectiveness, the findings showed substantial longer survival benefits from neodjuvant PD-1 inhibitors, including a low recurrence rate when compared with historic rates. The study included a retrospective review of 73 patients between ages 18 and 75 with confirmed dMMR/MSI-H CRC who received any type of PD-1 inhibitor prior to...