Immunotherapy Outcome Predictors: Scientists Discover Methods to Foreshadow Results
Experts At Johns Hopkins Identify Specific Tumor Mutations Indicating Response to Immunotherapy
In the continually evolving battle against cancer, immunotherapy is emerging as a promising treatment option. However, its efficacy is not universally applicable to all cancer types and patients. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have made a significant breakthrough in identifying a specific subset of mutations in a cancer tumor that could hint at the cancer's receptivity to immunotherapy.
The study, published recently in the journal Nature Medicine, could potentially aid doctors in better selecting patients for immunotherapy and predicting treatment outcomes.
Immunotherapy leverages the body's immune system to combat the disease. Normally, cancer cells develop mutations that enable them to evade the immune system. Immunotherapy boosts the immune system's ability to locate and destroy these cancer cells.
There are various types of immunotherapy, including checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cell therapy, and cytokine therapy. At present, immunotherapy is being utilized for breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer. Research is underway to explore its potential for treating other cancers like prostate, brain, and ovarian.
Currently, doctors use the total number of mutations in a tumor, known as the tumor mutational burden (TMB), to estimate the tumor's response to immunotherapy. However, the researchers in the study propose a refined approach. They have identified a subset of persistent mutations within the TMB that suggest a higher likelihood of response to immunotherapy.
These persistent mutations are less likely to disappear as cancer evolves, keeping the cancer cells visible to the body's immune system. Thus, immunotherapy is more effective against tumors with high persistent mutation loads, as the response is augmented by immune checkpoint blockade.
According to Dr. Valsamo Anagnostou, a senior author of the study and an associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins, "Persistent mutation load may help clinicians more accurately select patients for clinical trials of novel immunotherapies or predict a patient's clinical outcome with standard-of-care immune checkpoint blockade."
In the future, it is expected that high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques will be employed to analyze patients' mutational spectra, enabling more precise categorization of patients by their likelihood of response to immunotherapy. This classification could potentially predict clinical outcomes and guide treatment decisions.
Dr. Kim Margolin, a medical oncologist and medical director of the Saint John's Cancer Institute Melanoma Program at Providence Saint John's Health Center in California, commended the study for analyzing persistent mutations beyond simple TMB evaluation. She believes persistent mutations, neoantigens, and specific immune responses will be vital determinants of an effective anticancer immune response when stimulated by current immunotherapeutic agents.
In conclusion, the study's findings underscore the significance of persistent mutations in increasing a cancer tumor's responsiveness to immunotherapy. According to Margolin, high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques might soon aid in categorizing patients by their likelihood of response to immunotherapy, allowing for more targeted and effective cancer treatment.
- The Johns Hopkins researchers have identified a specific subset of mutations in a cancer tumor that could indicate the cancer's receptivity to immunotherapy.
- The study suggests a refined approach to estimating the tumor's response to immunotherapy, focusing on a subset of persistent mutations within the tumor mutational burden (TMB).
- The persistent mutations, less likely to disappear as cancer evolves, may help clinicians more accurately select patients for clinical trials of novel immunotherapies or predict a patient's clinical outcome with standard-of-care immune checkpoint blockade.
- High-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques might soon be employed to analyze patients' mutational spectra, enabling more precise categorization of patients by their likelihood of response to immunotherapy, potentially guiding treatment decisions in the field of health-and-wellness and therapies-and-treatments.
