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New therapy: immune cells to treat breast cancer

New therapy: immune cells to treat breast cancer. The incidence of breast cancer in women exceeds that of lung cancer for the first time, and immune cells may become a new treatment option. 

Recently, the latest data from the World Health Organization show that the global cancer burden will continue to increase in 2020. For the first time, the incidence of breast cancer in women exceeds that of lung cancer, becoming the most common cancer in the world, accounting for approximately 11.7% of new cancer cases. Among newly diagnosed patients, 1 in 8 is a breast cancer patient.

The director of the International Breast Cancer Research Institute pointed out that the main reason for the increase in the incidence of breast cancer is the changes in key risk factors for breast cancer, such as the continuous increase in obesity and the lack of physical activity of young people.

These changes are most obvious in developed and developing countries. In low-income countries, due to economic constraints, breast cancer patients are almost at an advanced stage when they are diagnosed. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new technologies to diagnose breast cancer in an early and timely manner, as well as to conduct comprehensive treatment.

In recent years, more and more cancer treatments have used immune cells. According to the data published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, as of March 2020, there are 1,438 cancer cell immunotherapy pipelines in the world. In some clinical studies, multiple scientific teams have also used immune cells to treat breast cancer.

New exploration of immune cell therapy for breast cancer

In terms of immune cell therapy for solid tumors, the latest scientific research has found that the combination of oncolytic virus and CAR-T cells can produce a powerful synergistic effect in triple-negative breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, head and neck cancer, and brain tumor cells. Play a role.

A recent study by researchers at the University of North Carolina Cancer Center showed that T cells that boost the immune system can effectively attack breast cancer and can be achieved through CAR-T cell therapy. This treatment was initially used to treat b-cell leukemia and lymphoma. It has been proven effective in patients, and this enhancement is now proven to help recruit more immune cells to fight at the tumor site. Let CAR-T cells play a role in solid tumors, which may be a new way to treat breast cancer. The results of this study were published in the “Journal of Experimental Medicine” [1].

Immunology expert Serody pointed out: “In order for CAR-T cell therapy to be effective, T cells that are returned to patients must be able to migrate to the tumor site. When treating patients with non-solid tumors (such as lymphoma), CAR-T cells will Make a home on the bone marrow and other organs that make up the lymphatic system, but for solid tumors, such as breast cancer, this is usually not the case. Even if they migrate to the tumor site, they will not be there due to the nature of the microenvironment surrounding the tumor site It continues and expands well.”

Researchers have found a new way to direct the cells expanded in the laboratory to the location of the solid tumor. Some cells have longer staying power in the microenvironment surrounding the tumor, such as Th17 cells and Tc17 cells.

Researchers hope to promote the accumulation of such cells near tumors, so they turned to small molecules such as cGAMP, an agonist that can activate the immune response. They found that mice injected with cGAMP showed enhanced T cell proliferation, and these cells were able to migrate to the tumor site. The end result was a significant suppression of tumor growth and improved patient survival.

Case report of immune cell therapy for breast cancer

In fact, there have been clinical studies using immune cells to treat breast cancer, and research results have been published. According to a report in the journal Nature Medicine, a patient with advanced breast cancer received a lasting remission after receiving experimental immunotherapy. This patient has survived cancer-free for 4 years. This study tried a “highly personalized” anti-cancer method, which made this patient with advanced breast cancer tumor regression. Researchers extracted lymphocytes from the patient’s tumor and screened out tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes that were responsive to the mutant cancer cells. These cells were modified and then injected back into the patient to achieve a good therapeutic effect [2 ].

In China, CCTV video once reported such cases. Ms. Wang, 49, has unfortunately suffered from breast cancer. After a complete right mastectomy and chemotherapy. After a while, the bad news came again. A liver metastatic tumor with a diameter of about 8 cm appeared on Ms. Wang’s liver. In subsequent treatments, doctors believed that continuing chemotherapy would only increase the burden on Ms. Wang’s body, and the effect of curbing the tumor was very poor, so the treatment must be changed, and immunotherapy may make the disease turn around.

Later, after receiving immune cell therapy, the metastatic tumor on Ms. Wang’s liver shrank further. Comparative analysis of CT results for 4 consecutive months showed that liver metastases shrank from 8 cm to 2.5 cm, and the tumor markers returned to normal. All these indicate that the tumor is being eliminated little by little by immune cells.

Outlook

Immune cell therapy is a new type of precision targeted therapy for the treatment of tumors. It has shown exciting therapeutic effects in certain malignant tumors. In recent years, through optimization and improvement, it has achieved great results in the clinical treatment and research of various tumors. Good results. In the future, immune cell therapy is expected to become an ideal strategy to cure cancer.

(source:internet, reference only)

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