Wednesday, January 1, 2014

FUTURE IMMUNOTHERAPY IN SOLID TUMORS

From the San Antonio meeting this year, we are having echos that are of interest to the CRBCM
There is a great interest in immunotherapy, that is, how to recruit the innate immunity to the fight against cancer.  The finding that there are lymphocytes that infiltrate the tumor has been observed and further, the presence of Lymphocytes in the tumor seems to confer, most of the time, a better prognosis.
Speculation is that if an effective autoimmune reaction is mounted, metastatic cells could be destroyed at distance from the primary tumor and seeding of metastasis could be delayed or precluded, therefore delaying disease progression.   The question is how to make such autoimmunity directed againt the tumor more effective.  Data collected in Prostate Cancer (Sipuleucel/Provenge) and Melanoma have been encouraging in terms of encouraging this line of research.

Furthermore, the inefficiency of infiltrated lymphocyte in cleaning the site of the tumor, has been attributed to a tumorkine secreted by the cancer to annihilate   the lymphocyte attack.  Tumorkine Receptors on the lymphocyte (and tissue itself for that matter) are now target therapy site potential.

It is of interest that various treatments given to the patient may alter his genes and some of the structure of the cancer cell could become immunogenic.  Studies looking at these changes after neoadjuvant therapies are now being conducted.  The point is that if they were not sufficiently immunogenic, rendering them immunogenic by conjugation with known compounds of immunogenic potential could be an interesting objective that will lead to the use of innate defense against cancer cell...this is a rapidly growing field!

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