Immunotherapy Outcomes Prediction: Scientists Discover Methods for Forecasting Responses to Treatment
Every year, scientists develop new methods to battle cancer, and immunotherapy is one of the latest additions. Yet, it doesn't work for everyone or every type of cancer. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have made a breakthrough, identifying a specific subset of mutations within a cancer tumor that might indicate how receptive a tumor will be to immunotherapy.
Imagine if we could boost our immune system to fight off cancer cells more effectively? That's what immunotherapy does. Normally, cancer cells mutate, hiding from the body's immune system. Immunotherapy provides a booster shot, helping the immune system spot and destroy these crafty cells.
There are several types of immunotherapy, such as monoclonal antibodies, checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cell therapy, and cytokine therapy. Currently, immunotherapy is used to treat breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer. Scientists are also exploring its potential in fighting other types of cancer like prostate, brain, and ovarian.
The Johns Hopkins team isn't just stopping at total mutations in a tumor (TMB) to predict how a tumor will react to immunotherapy. They've identified a specific subset of mutations they call "persistent mutations." These mutations remain even as the cancer evolves, making the tumor visible to the immune system and improving the tumor's response to immunotherapy.
"Persistent mutations may render the cancer cells continuously visible to the immune system, causing an immune response and prolonging survival with immunotherapy," says Dr. Valsamo Anagnostou, a senior author of the study.
This breakthrough could help doctors select patients for immunotherapy more accurately and predict the treatment's outcome better. The findings of this study were recently published in the journal Nature Medicine.
"It was refreshing to see this incredible article demonstrating that a highly-respective collaborative group has gone beyond the simple concept of tumor mutation burden and defined persistent mutations in a new light," says Dr. Kim Margolin, a medical oncologist who spoke with Medical News Today.
In the future, doctors may be able to analyze a patient's mutational spectrum using high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques, helping them categorize patients based on their likelihood of response to immunotherapy. The days of generic cancer treatment could be numbered, with personalized treatment plans on the horizon.
- Scientists are working on systems that could boost our immune systems to combat cancer cells more effectively, such as immunotherapy.
- The immune system, in the context of cancer and immunotherapy, works by detecting and destroying cancer cells that have previously mutated to hide from the body.
- Immunotherapy is currently used to treat various medical conditions like breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer, and researchers are exploring its potential for other cancers like prostate, brain, and ovarian.
- Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have made a significant find, identifying a specific subset of mutations called "persistent mutations" within a cancer tumor to predict a patient's response to immunotherapy more accurately.
