Cancer Immunotherapy a New Found Hope in Treating Cancer Patients

Antibodies stimulating the immune system to destroy cancer cells. Retrieved from: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6165/1432.full

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 What if I told you there’s new found hope to treating patients with cancer?  Or that there are success stories of patients with cancer getting treated and living longer than expected?! For decades, researchers have struggled with developing a way to utilize the body’s immune system to combat tumors, well until now.  This past year, 2013, marks the turning point in cancer immunotherapy.

Cancer immunotherapy is a different way of treating cancer because this is specifically targeting the immune system and not just the tumor.  One of the earliest treatments developed to use the immune system to destroy cancer, was with the discovery of a new protein receptor on T cells, known as cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4, CTLA-4.  This receptor was found to inhibit the T-cells from initiating immune attacks; that developing antibodies against CTLA-4 became a sudden interest.  With the right biotechnology company behind all this research, anti-CTLA-4 was soon being used in people and to researcher’s surprise it extended the life of a patient with advanced melanoma.

Another molecule was discovered in the expression of dying T-cells, which were called programmed death 1, PD-1.  This molecule was also recognized to inhibit T-cell function that an anti-PD-1 was developed and resulted in a decrease in tumor size in humans.  Such finding with T cells, really hones in on the fact that cancer immunotherapy and using antibodies is becoming more mainstream.

By using both anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1 in cancer treatments, physicians were noticing that the tumor cells have not only diminished over time, but were even effective in patients that stopped using the antibodies.  This, therefore, suggests that the antibodies are causing a change in the patient’s immune system!  However, it was not until 2011 that anti-CTLA-4 treatment, known as ipilimumab, became FDA approved.  This treatment was then tested in 1800 melanoma patients this past year and further solidified the fact that it can extend the patients lifespan.

Just imagine how much closer we will be in the next couple years in developing a successful cancer treatment viable in various patients!  Cancer immunotherapy is paving a new way to treat cancer and the results are astounding. Unfortunately, I can also understand and see how cancer immunotherapy may be limited to few cancers or individuals due to our immune systems varying.  Until we are certain, we will just have to wait (unless you’re currently working on this!!!).

To read more about this feel free to check out the article at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6165/1432.full