Tag: immunotherapy

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The doctor mentioned using immunotherapy. What is immunotherapy, and how does it differ from chemotherapy, which I’ve traditionally heard about for treating cancer? ANSWER: Immunotherapy is a newer therapy in the current treatment landscape for breast cancer. It also has been used in treating other

Researchers at City of Hope, a world-renowned research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases, looked at the most common type of metastatic colorectal cancer and discovered that these patients are more responsive to checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, an innovative treatment that helps the immune system recognize and attack cancerous cells, if tumors

(HealthDay)—In a first, researchers have used genetically tweaked immune system cells to send a woman’s severe lupus into remission. The treatment—called CAR T-cell therapy—is already approved in the United States for fighting certain cases of blood cancer. It involves removing a patient’s own immune system T-cells, genetically altering them to target the cancer, then infusing

Findings A UCLA research team has shown that using a truncated form of the CD4 molecule as part of a gene therapy to combat HIV yielded superior and longer-lasting results in mouse models than previous similar therapies using the CD4 molecule. This new approach to CAR T gene therapy — a type of immunotherapy that

Scientists from Nanjing University and the University of Macau have devised a new approach to extend the survival of transplanted probiotics in vivo, enhancing the efficacy of cancer chemo-/immunotherapies in mice. The paper entitled “smectite promotes probiotic biofilm formation in the gut for cancer immunotherapy,” appears online today in Cell Reports. The gut contains trillions

By Keynote ContributorDr. Charles AkleChairman of Immodulon By Dr Charles Akle History of immunotherapy William Coley is the grandfather of immunotherapy. A surgeon in New York between 1870 and 1910, he developed extracts of streptococcus and another bacterium called Serratia marcescens (known as Coley’s toxins) to treat patients, particularly children, with sarcoma. The responses were

Immunotherapy is one of the most promising approaches to inhibit tumor growth and metastasis by activating host immune functions. However, so far, immunotherapy still exhibits limitations of efficacy and safety, such as huge individual differences in treatment responses, difficulty to work on solid tumors, systemic immune storm and other immunotoxicity. Therefore, the development of advanced

An autoimmune side effect of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) drugs could signal improved control of kidney cancer, according to a new study by researchers in UT Southwestern’s Kidney Cancer Program (KCP). The study, published today in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, may have broad implications for patients being treated with ICIs, a type of

A clinical trial led by Mount Sinai researchers has showed for the first time that combining chemotherapy and immunotherapy can slow down metastatic bladder cancer. The trial also showed that immunotherapy alone may be an option for a subset of patients with metastatic bladder cancer if their tumor expresses a high level of a protein

Researchers from King’s have found that a potential treatment for peanut allergy provides some degree of protection but does not cure an allergic patient and this could explain why allergic reactions are still observed during treatment. In the study, published today in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researchers tested samples from patients who

A crucial signaling pathway that can tell the immune system to fight off cancer can also be co-opted by cancer cells to put the brakes on the immune system, according to a new study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Researchers say this increased understanding can serve as a

Precision cancer drugs called PARP inhibitors have a previously unknown ability to boost the immune system, and could help many more patients benefit from immunotherapy, a new study reveals. Scientists found that PARP inhibitors sparked a powerful immune response when used against cancer cells with weaknesses in repairing their DNA. The study changes our understanding

Children in England with high-risk neuroblastoma will now be offered a cancer drug that could extend their life. Final recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) mean children over the age of 12 months, who have responded to previous treatment but have a high risk of their cancer coming back, will

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (BKI) released a study investigating the use of combination checkpoint immunotherapy in the treatment of a lethal form of advanced prostate cancer. The study suggested a genetic subset of prostate cancer may benefit from this form of immunotherapy. The study

A unique bacterial strain isolated from a patient with pelvic pain may represent a promising path to treating prostate cancer with immunotherapy, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Nature Communications. The study demonstrated how the bacterial strain travels directly to the prostate and induces low-level inflammation, boosting the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitor

Immunotherapy is a form of cancer therapy that boosts the body’s immune system in the fight against tumors. Adoptive cell transfer (ACT), in particular, is a type of immunotherapy that strengthens a specific kind of immune cell: T cells. In ACT, healthcare professionals collect T cells from the malignant tumor and isolate immune cells that

The majority of patients eligible for cancer immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors received treatment within a few months of FDA approval, according to a new Yale-led study. The finding suggests that cancer immunotherapies are adopted at a much quicker pace than is typical for newly approved medical treatments, the researchers said. However, patients receiving

New immunotherapy treatments offer a remarkable chance for survival for patients with advanced melanoma and hard-to-treat cancers of the bladder, kidney and lung. But the treatments, designed to unleash the immune system to attack cancer, can also spur an assault on healthy organs, including the eye. The cases of three recent patients, published by University

Immunotherapies are treatments that stimulate a patient’s immune cells to attack tumors. They can be very effective in melanoma—a common and aggressive form of skin tumor—but nonetheless fail in the majority of patients. To address this, researchers are trying to identify the factors that enable successful immunotherapy, as well as those that may limit it.

Further evidence that immunotherapy provides long-term survival benefit for patients with lung cancer was presented today at ELCC 2018 (European Lung Cancer Congress) in Geneva, Switzerland. Researchers presented the three-year survival results of the randomised phase 2 POPLAR trial in second line, which is the longest follow-up reported to date with anti-programmed death ligand 1