A double blow to liver cancer

Combined immunotherapy stops liver cancer

Svetlana Maslova, Hi-tech+

The scientists combined two individually ineffective immunotherapy tools and achieved excellent results. For now – for mice. But soon clinical trials on humans will start.

Every year, more than 700 thousand cases of liver cancer are diagnosed in the world and about 600 thousand deaths after this diagnosis. In the search for effective treatment methods, American scientists turned to failures in immunotherapy and found out that a combination of two methods that do not work separately suppresses tumors. The team used a PolyIC double-stranded RNA analog and antibodies to the PD-L1 protein expressed by the tumor.

Therapy dramatically increased the number of activated CD8 T-lymphocytes that attack the tumor. This conclusion was reached by a team from the University of California at San Francisco after experiments with mice, according to a press release from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine Preclinical Data Shows Combination Immunotherapy Could Stop Liver Cancer Growth.

Article by Wen et al. An Effective Combination Immunotherapy for Primary Liver Cancer by Harmonized Activation of Innate and Adaptive Immunity in Mice is published in the journal Hepatology.

Against the background of treatment in mice with hepatocellular carcinoma, suppression of tumor growth was observed, and in some – complete remission.

The study evaluated primary liver cancer, but the team is already considering therapy options for cancer with metastases in the late stages.

Both drugs are already approved for human treatment, so researchers don't have to test safety for humans, and they are already planning clinical trials.

"These studies may change the paradigm of liver cancer treatment, which will activate multiple innate functions of immunity against the tumor," concludes the head of the work Feng Gen–Shen.

Immunotherapy is called a new hope in the fight against cancer, but it is not applicable for all oncological diseases. Recently, scientists have found a means to enhance the therapeutic effects of immunotherapy for many types of tumors at once. The effectiveness of the method against prostate and brain cancer has also been proven.

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