In order to eliminate tumors while strengthening a cancer patient’s immune system, health providers administer cancer immunotherapies to patients. Immunotherapy is revolutionizing the treatment of cancer as many patients respond very well to these treatments, with some actually experiencing a long-lasting remission. However, some types of cancer aren’t as easy to treat with this method, which is why enlarging the effect of this approach remains a high priority.
A team of researchers led by Douglas Fearon and Tobias Janowitz, both scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, may have found a way to do this. In collaboration with the University of Cambridge and Duncan Jodrell of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge, the scientists conducted a clinical trial of a drug that causes an integrated immune response in patients with tumors of cancer types that do not normally respond to immunotherapy.
The trial was reported in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” The scientists are hopeful that the potential treatment may make tumors more responsive to immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs. These drugs release the natural brakes on an individual’s immune system, thus freeing it to locate and eliminate cancer cells. However, these same drugs haven’t been effective in destroying cancer cells that have low levels of genetic mutation.
Janowitz explained that these tumors are not visible to a person’s immune system and aren’t unmasked by the current therapies being used. The scientists believe that this is because they engage an immune suppressive pathway, which prevents immune cells from accessing the cancer cell nest.
During the clinical trial, the scientists cut off that immunosuppressive pathway using a drug known as plerixafor. The drug was dispensed continuously via IV for seven days to 24 patients who had either colorectal cancer or pancreatic cancer with a low tumor mutational burden. All 24 participants had advanced in the disease stages and had biopsies of their metastatic tumors collected both before and after treatment.
The researchers then analyzed those samples and discovered that critical immune cells had invaded the tumors during the period the patients were receiving plerixafor. Among those immune cells was a cell type whose role was to mobilize and assemble anti-cancer cells. These findings were encouraging to the researchers, who also noted changes had been observed in patients who had cancers that responded positively to checkpoint inhibitors.
Jodrell, who was in charge of patient recruitment and planning for the clinical study, stated that he was pleased to learn that the research team had translated these valuable discoveries into patient care that has potential to revolutionize how these cancers were treated in the future.
CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) is one of the interesting entities that you should watch in the biomedical technology space. This company, whose headquarters are in Houston, Texas, focuses on developing new treatments for both primary and metastatic forms of cancer affecting the central nervous system and the brain.
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