Predictive Immunotherapy: Scientists Discover Keys for Foreseeing Treatment Response Success
Breakthrough discovery by scientists at Johns Hopkins University might revolutionize the selection of cancer patients for immunotherapy and predict the outcomes of treatment more accurately. A specific subset of mutations in a cancer tumor has been identified by these researchers, referred to as "persistent mutations." These mutations have the potential to make cancer tumors more visible to the immune system, enhancing the body's ability to attack and eliminate cancer cells through immunotherapy.
These persistent mutations are steadfast in cancer cells and do not disappear as cancer evolves, allowing the cancer tumor to remain easily identifiable by the immune system. This makes it possible for a better response to immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy is a treatment option for cancers including breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer, with researchers investigating its potential application in other types of cancer as well, such as prostate, brain, and ovarian cancer.
In the past, the total number of mutations in a tumor, referred to as Tumor Mutation Burden (TMB), has been used by doctors to estimate a tumor's receptiveness to immunotherapy. However, the research suggests that persistent mutations are a better indicator of a cancer's response to immunotherapy.
While greater TMB results in better outcomes with immunotherapy for some tumors, the number of persistent mutations more accurately identifies tumors that are likely to benefit from immune checkpoint blockade. This finding may help clinicians more accurately select patients for clinical trials of novel immunotherapies or predict patient outcomes with standard-of-care immune checkpoint blockade.
The potential implications of these findings are vast. It is likely that, in the future, high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques will be utilized to analyze patients' mutational spectrum and categorize them based on their likelihood of responding to immunotherapy.
This groundbreaking research sheds light on a promising future for immunotherapy in cancer treatment, while also suggesting potential new approaches for improving cancer patient selection and predicting clinical outcomes.
What is immunotherapy?Immunotherapy employs the body's immune system to fight cancer. Normally, cancer cells grow mutations that help them evade detection by the immune system. Immunotherapy boosts the immune system's ability to recognize and kill cancer cells, using various techniques such as checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T-cell therapy, and cancer vaccines.
References:[1] Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2021). City of Hope, JHU and Microsoft team up to fight cancer, using AI to detect DNA fragments in blood. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/08/11/city-of-hope-jhu-microsoft-ai-cancer-detection/[2] Medical News Today. (2020). Immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer: What to know. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/immunotherapy-for-pancreatic-cancer[3] Lara Li, et al. (2021). Predicting response to immune checkpoint blockades for patients with metastatic renal clear cell carcinoma via multiplex t-cell receptor sequencing and tumor site sampling. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01509-8[4] National Cancer Institute. (2021). Targeted Cancer Therapies. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/targeted-therapies/tumor-mutation-burden[5] Cancer Today. (2021). Immunotherapy: What Is It? Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/immunotherapy/what-immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is a system of medical-conditions treatments that leverages the immune system to combat cancer. The discovery of persistent mutations, steady in cancer cells, by scientists at Johns Hopkins University could revolutionize the selection of cancer patients for immunotherapy. This is because these mutations make cancer cells more noticeable to the immune system, potentially enhancing the success of immunotherapies and therapies-and-treatments.
While Tumor Mutation Burden (TMB) has been used in the past to estimate a tumor's susceptibility to immunotherapy, research suggests that persistent mutations are a more accurate indicator of a cancer's response to immunotherapy, such as immune checkpoint blockade. This finding could lead to better patient selection for clinical trials of novel immunotherapies or more accurate predictions of patient outcomes with standard-of-care immune checkpoint blockade.
Immunotherapy is currently used for various types of cancer, including breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer. With ongoing research, it's possible that immunotherapy could be applied to other types of cancer, such as prostate, brain, and ovarian cancer.
In the future, high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques may be utilized to analyze patients' mutational spectrum and categorize them based on their likelihood of responding to immunotherapy, leading to a more targeted and effective approach to cancer treatment.
