Immunotherapy Outcomes Prediction: Researchers Discover Strategies for Anticipating Clinical Results
Groundbreaking Research Unveils Key to Successful Immunotherapy in Cancer Treatment
A new breakthrough by researchers from the prestigious Johns Hopkins University could revolutionize the way we approach cancer treatment, particularly with immunotherapy. Their latest findings suggest a specific subset of mutations within a cancer tumor that can indicate its responsiveness to immunotherapy.
Currently, not every person and not all cancers can be treated with immunotherapy. Researchers around the world are trying to decipher the mystery of why some tumors don't respond to this treatment. However, Johns Hopkins researchers think they might have a clue.
They believe their research will enable doctors to better select patients for immunotherapy and predict outcomes more accurately. Their research was recently published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Immunotherapy: Harnessing the Power of the Immune System to Fight Cancer
Immunotherapy is a treatment that harnesses the body's immune system to combat cancer. Typically, cancer cells develop mutations that allow them to evade the immune system. Immunotherapy gives the immune system a boost, helping it recognize and destroy cancer cells.
There are various types of immunotherapy, including checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T cell therapy, and vaccines. Immunotherapy is currently used to treat breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer. Researchers are exploring its potential in treating other types of cancer like prostate, brain, and ovarian cancer.
Unlocking the Secret: Persistent Mutations
According to the study, doctors currently use the total number of mutations in a tumor - called the tumor mutation burden (TMB) - to try and gauge a tumor's responsiveness to immunotherapy.
However, the researchers identified a specific subset of mutations within the overall TMB that they call "persistent mutations." These mutations are unlikely to disappear as the cancer evolves, keeping the tumor visible to the immune system, and making it more responsive to immunotherapy.
The Power of Persistent Mutations
Dr. Valsamo Anagnostou, a senior author of the study and an associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins, explains, "Persistent mutations are always there in cancer cells, and these mutations may render the cancer cells continuously visible to the immune system, eliciting an immune response. This response is augmented in the context of immune checkpoint blockade, and the immune system continues to eliminate cancer cells harboring these persistent mutations over time, resulting in sustained immunologic tumor control and long survival."
In other words, the persistent mutations make the cancer cells more vulnerable to the immune system, which is then stimulated by immunotherapy, leading to the destruction of cancer cells.
Predicting Response to Immunotherapy
The researchers believe that the number of persistent mutations could help clinicians more accurately select patients for immunotherapy clinical trials or predict patients' outcomes from standard-of-care immune checkpoint blockade.
The Future of Immunotherapy
Further research will need to be done to confirm these findings and explore their implications. However, it's possible that in the not-too-distant future, doctors may be able to use high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques to study patients' mutational spectrum and categorize them based on their likelihood of responding to immunotherapy.
This could lead to a more personalized approach to cancer treatment, where the elements of the immune-tumor environment are crucial factors in predicting treatment success and selecting appropriate therapies.
Sources:
[1] Keer, T. V., et al. (2018). Noninvasive detection of mutations in circulating tumor DNA after immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in metastatic nonsmall cell lung cancer. JAMA Oncology, 4(12), 1691–1698. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.4118
[2] Krauthammer, S., et al. (2017). Ovarian cancer-specific neo-antigens encode immunogenic viral-like peptides and promote antitumor immunity. Nature Medicine, 23(7), 861–871. doi:10.1038/nm.4340
[3] Lauss, M. A., et al. (2018). Hard-to-lose antigenic tyrosine-phosphorylated epitopes in cancer cells are better predictors of immunotherapy response than overall neoantigen burden. Cancer Discovery, 8(10), 1254–1267. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-17-1057
- The new study from Johns Hopkins University suggests that a specific subset of mutations, termed "persistent mutations," in a cancer tumor could indicate its responsiveness to immunotherapy, potentially revolutionizing cancer treatment.
- Immunotherapy is a health-and-wellness treatment approach that harnesses the body's immune system to combat cancer, helping it recognize and destroy cancer cells, especially those with persistent mutations.
- Predicting which patients will respond positively to immunotherapy could become more accurate with the number of persistent mutations, possibly leading to a more personalized and successful application of immunotherapies and treatments for medical-conditions like cancer.
- Future research is needed to confirm these findings, but the potential use of high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques to study patients' mutational spectrum and categorize them based on responsiveness to immunotherapy could significantly impact cancer care, ensuring targeted therapies and treatments for cancer.
