New research has found that the combined use of radiation and IL-7 (interleukin 7), which is an immune-boosting protein, improves survival rates for mice with glioblastoma.
Glioblastoma is a cancer that occurs in an individual’s spinal cord or brain. The conventional treatment for this fatal cancer is chemotherapy and radiation, with figures showing that only about 10% of patients survive for more than five years after being diagnosed with this aggressive cancer, which is resistant to new immunotherapies.
The study was carried out by researchers at the School of Medicine at the Washington University in St. Louis. They found that IL-7 boosted lymphocyte numbers in immune organs as well as the tumor. Lymphocytes usually attack the cancer cells present in the body, which improves an individual’s rate of survival.
Radiation combined with chemotherapy helps treat cancer but also impairs T cells. Lymphocytes, which are also known as T cells, are crucial in the body as they help fight infections. Most patients with glioblastoma usually have low T cells levels, with the survival rate of those with chronically low T cell counts being significantly diminished.
Jian L. Campian, the study’s first author, stated that a prior study had demonstrated a six-month shorter survival for glioblastoma patients with low lymphocyte counts, explaining that patients with low T cells numbers also had low IL-7, which supports lymphocyte growth. Campian added that normally, individuals with low lymphocyte counts had high IL-7 levels.
The researcher’s study objective was to see whether administering IL-7 to patients could boost T cell numbers and have a positive influence on their survival. For their study, the researchers administered a combination of radiation, chemotherapy and IL-7 to mice with glioblastoma tumors, which led to the discovery that the mice lived longer in comparison to those that only received radiation and chemotherapy.
The mice that received only radiation lived for 35 to 40 days while those that received IL-7 lived for roughly 30 days. On the other hand, mice that received a combination of IL-7 and radiation lived for at least 40 days, with researchers noting that some lived past the 90-day mark.
Associate professor of medicine Milan Chheda, co-senior author of the study, stated that knowing how these improvements in survival observed in mice would translate to people wasn’t easy; he noted that the researchers hoped that some improvement would be observed in patients who were treated with this immune-boosting protein.
The study’s findings were reported in “Clinical Cancer Research.”
A lot more research, such as that being conducted by CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP), is geared at finding more efficacious treatments for some of the most hard-to-treat cancers of the brain and nervous system. The years ahead look promising for patients.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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