Extracorporeal immunotherapy
Scientists of the I. Kant BFU have proposed an effective way of immunological destruction of cancer cells
The development of methods to combat various kinds of oncological diseases has always been one of the most important areas of work of the Center for Medical Biotechnology of the I. Kant BFU. Among these techniques is extracorporeal immunotherapy.
What is its essence?
"A cancer–stricken organism can, of course, fight the tumor on its own, but being weakened, it does it slowly, and often not effectively," says Professor Viktor Seledtsov, who headed the Center for Medical Biotechnology for about ten years (from 2007 to 2017), and today is its senior researcher. – But there is a way to give the body real help. For this purpose, blood is used, which contains all the elements of both innate and acquired immunity. Therefore, it is possible to isolate leukocytes from the blood and, after treating (instructing) them in a certain way, introduce them systemically or into the problem area."
Isolated leukocytes are treated with immunomodulators that give them antitumor cytotoxic (that is, triggering the process of destruction of a malignant cell) properties. There is a technique when leukocytes are exposed not only to immunomodulators, but also to antigens. In this case, antigen-presenting cells that initiate immune responses are injected subcutaneously.
"As for the stimulation of antitumor immune reactions by xenogenic (foreign) tumor antigens, the I. Kant BFU has a good scientific foundation,– Viktor Ivanovich notes. "We have very encouraging results in the treatment of melanoma, kidney, lung and breast cancer, tumors of the central nervous system."
According to Professor Seledtsov, the next stage of the work is to learn how to effectively use donated blood for the treatment of oncological diseases.
"If a person is sick, it means that his immune system cannot cope with its protective function, in addition, traditional methods of treatment – chemotherapy, radiation therapy – have a negative impact on it. In this case, especially if we are talking about an elderly patient, it is very difficult to stimulate antitumor immunity. Therefore, the use of immune cells obtained from the blood of a donor, preferably a close relative, can serve as a suitable option here," Seledtsov believes.
Methods of cancer treatment using extracorporeal immunotherapy are constantly being improved.
"There are many different ways of treatment, but today scientists are increasingly convinced that antitumor immunotherapy is only truly effective when all both innate and acquired immunological mechanisms are used," the scientist notes.
Recently, the authoritative scientific publication Oncotarget published an article by Viktor Seledtsov and Galina Seledtsova, which outlines and defines a new direction in oncology (Gaining threshold antibody cytotoxicity for selective tumor cell destruction: an opinion article).
"Modern biotechnologies allow us to create various antibodies that can kill cancer cells. The problem is that the tumor cell is not very different from the normal one, which means that antibodies can also harm healthy tissues. Therefore, we suggest using not one, but several antibodies in suboptimal doses to selectively destroy tumor cells," explains Viktor Ivanovich. – The most important thing here is to achieve a threshold concentration of cytotoxic antibodies on tumor cells, but not on normal cells. In fact, we propose to use the technology of the "immunological knife" to selectively destroy the tumor."
However, Viktor Seledtsov noted that no method by itself can be a panacea. The effectiveness of cancer treatment largely depends on the stage of the disease. If the disease has already developed, then the tumor is something like a well-fortified fortress, and it is very difficult for the immune system to destroy it even under the influence of immunostimulating drugs. Therefore, cancer treatment will always require comprehensive and personalized treatment, an important place in which, of course, will belong to immunotherapy.
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