Cancer Vaccine Factories
The introduction of immunostimulants directly into cancerous tumors led to complete remission within a few months
Dmitry Mazalev, Naked Science
Employees of Mount Sinai Medical Center, the largest independent commercial hospital in South Florida, said that by injecting immunostimulants directly into cancerous tumors, they turned them into "cancer vaccine factories" that produce cancer-killing immune cells. According to doctors, the new approach has proved so successful in the fight against one type of cancer that specialists have already begun testing it on the other two. The results of the study are published in the journal Nature Medicine (Hammerich et al., Systematic clinical tumor regressions and potential of PD1 blockade with in situ vaccination).
Treatment begins with the introduction of two immunostimulants directly into the tumor: the first recruits immune cells called dendritic, while the second activates them – these cells, in turn, cause the T cells of the immune system to kill cancer cells, leaving non-cancerous intact. After such "training", the cells of the immune system can be transported to other parts of the body, killing cancer wherever it occurs, and turning the tumor into a factory of anti-cancer vaccines.
According to the published study of the group, specialists have already tested the new therapy method on 11 patients with late-stage lymphoma during clinical trials, as a result of which some patients experienced complete remission for several months or even years. In laboratory tests on mice, the vaccine dramatically increased the success of immunotherapy, which consists in blocking control points – with the help of it, it was previously possible to achieve complete remission in some patients.
This success motivated scientists to conduct two additional clinical trials – this time involving patients with breast cancer and head and neck cancer. Since the combined immune therapy was at least three times more effective than blocking checkpoints or the vaccine itself, the researchers are extremely optimistic about how effective it can be in the next work.
"Our in situ vaccine approach has broad implications for many types of cancer. In addition, the demonstrated method can increase the success of other immunotherapeutic agents, such as blocking control points," says study co–author Joshua Brody in a press release from Mount Sinai Researchers Develop Treatment That Turns Tumors Into Cancer Vaccine Factories.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru