Prediction Methods for Immunotherapy: Scientists Discover Strategies to Forecast Results
Every year, the fight against cancer continues with the development of new treatment options, one of which is immunotherapy. However, this treatment does not work universally for both people and all types of cancer. To address this issue, researchers from Johns Hopkins University have discovered a specific subset of mutations in cancer tumors that could indicate a tumor's receptiveness to immunotherapy.
The researchers believe that their findings will help doctors more accurately select individuals for immunotherapy and better predict treatment outcomes. Their research was recently published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Immunotherapy harnesses the body's immune system to fight the disease. Cancer cells often develop mutations that allow them to evade the immune system. Immunotherapy provides a boost to the immune system, making it easier for it to detect and destroy cancer cells.
Currently, immunotherapy is a treatment option for breast cancer, melanoma, leukemia, and non-small cell lung cancer. Researchers are exploring its potential as a treatment for other types of cancer such as prostate cancer, brain cancer, and ovarian cancer.
For the study, the researchers looked at the total number of mutations in a tumor, known as tumor mutation burden (TMB), as a means of determining how well a tumor would respond to immunotherapy. They found that a specific subset of mutations, which they called "persistent mutations," were less likely to disappear as cancer evolved. This allowed the cancer tumor to remain visible to the immune system and respond more favorably to immunotherapy.
"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," explained Dr. Valsamo Anagnostou, a senior author of the study and an associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins. "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."
Dr. Anagnostou believes that this discovery has significant implications for the future of cancer treatment. "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."
When asked about the potential impact of this research on cancer patients selected for immunotherapy, Dr. Kim Margolin, a medical oncologist and medical director of the Saint John's Cancer Institute Melanoma Program, stated, "It is likely that in the not-too-distant future, it will be possible to use high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques to study patients' mutational spectrum such as was done in this study." This would allow doctors to categorize patients by their likelihood of response to immunotherapy, potentially leading to more tailored and effective treatment for cancer patients.
- For cancer patients seeking immunotherapy treatments, the discovery of persistent mutations in their tumors could help doctors more accurately predict the effectiveness of the treatment.
- The study, published in Nature Medicine, reveals that these persistent mutations make cancer cells more visible to the immune system, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of immunotherapy.
- The utilization of high-throughput, next-generation sequencing techniques is anticipated to classify patients by their response likelihood to immunotherapy, which could lead to more tailored and effective cancer treatments.
- Such personalized health-and-wellness therapies and treatments, like immunotherapy, could revolutionize the medical-conditions landscape, particularly in the fight against cancer.
