April 25, 2024

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New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%



 

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%.

A new breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer! 16.2 billion immune cells entered the body, and the tumor shrank by 72%.

Pancreatic cancer, the king of cancer that has changed people’s eyes, finally ushered in a new treatment!

Recently, a new type of immunotherapy published in tl “New England Journal of Medicine” caused a sensation!

A new ‘live’ immunotherapy has shrunk the tumors of a woman with pancreatic cancer. Researchers believe it has the potential to benefit millions of people .

 

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%

 

 

After 16.2 billion immune cells entered the body, the tumor shrank by 72%!


Ms. M, 67, became the first beneficiary of this therapy.

 

In 2018, 67-year-old Ms. M was finally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer because of recurrent attacks of pancreatitis.

Due to the relatively early discovery, she got relief after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, surgery, postoperative radiotherapy and chemotherapy combined treatment.

Within a year, however, the cancer had spread to her lungs, and doctors told her her only option was to continue chemotherapy. Thinking of the painful experience and the ending that will eventually progress, she refused.

 

Hoping to find better treatment options, she came across a 2016 report online in the New England Journal of Medicine detailing an experimental immunotherapy for a genetic mutation called KRAS G12D that left People with advanced colon cancer go into complete remission.

So in 2020, she approached Dr. Leidner, the person in charge of the experiment, and applied to participate in this brand-new immune cell therapy-TILs treatment.

The genetic test results showed that she also had the KRAS G12D mutation. But unfortunately, the disease still progressed after 6 months.

 

In June 2021, when Ms. M was desperate, Dr. Leidner told her that the FDA had approved a new type of immunotherapy clinical trial TCR-T , so Ms. M participated in the clinical trial of TCR-T therapy with her last hope.

 

The researchers extracted her T cells, carried out genetic modification in vitro, and prepared a large number of TCR-T cells that could specifically recognize the KRAS G12D mutant cancer cells in her body, and then injected the T cells that could precisely kill cancer cells. The army of cells was infused back into Ms. M’s body .

 

When 16.2 billion immune cells returned to Ms. M’s body, a miracle happened. One month later, the metastases in Ms. M’s body began to subside ; after 6 months, after evaluation, Ms. M’s lesions disappeared by 72% !

 

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%

 

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that the new treatment is a “live drug ,” meaning the modified T cells continue to grow and proliferate within the immune system and remain vigilant in case the cancer returns. This experimental treatment successfully stopped the progression of advanced pancreatic cancer in one woman.

 

 

The newly transformed TCR-T therapy challenges the “cancer king”!


The reason why this study caused a sensation in the medical world is that about 90% of pancreatic cancers have KRAS mutations, and the most common subtype is KRAS G12D, accounting for 41%!

For this large patient population with specific targets, no targeted drugs have been approved so far. Now, researchers have specifically developed a TCR-T therapy targeting KRAS G12D.

 

To put it simply, TCR-T therapy needs to obtain T cells from patients for modification, so that T cells can express TCR (T cell receptor, T cell antigen receptor) that can effectively recognize tumor cells so that they can target specific cancer antigens. therapy .

This new type of therapy could allow physicians to engineer the most appropriate targets for each patient’s tumor and different types of T cells, personalizing treatment and offering patients greater hope for remission.

 

In this experiment, the researchers genetically engineered T cells from pancreatic cancer patients in vitro to express two different TCRs that recognize tumor antigens presented on the surface of cancer cells by their HLA proteins.

These two TCRs can not only accurately recognize the polypeptide containing the KRAS G12D mutation, but also do not respond to the wild-type KRAS, so that they can accurately target cancer cells.

 

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%

 

 

Effective for a variety of solid tumors! The Rise of TCR-T Therapy!


We believe that after reading the above research, many people will still ask, what exactly is TCR-T therapy?

 

The immune defense mechanism of the human body mainly relies on the white blood cell corps in the body. As a kind of white blood cell, T cells have an irreplaceable role.

They are special soldiers in the human body. Once cancer cells are found, T cells will take the initiative to attack and kill the enemy first. Therefore, It is also called “killer T cell”.

 

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%

 

Most cancer patients do not have enough T cells to recognize and kill tumor cells. For these patients, doctors can use a treatment called engineered T cell receptor (TCR) .

 

TCR-T technology, that is, T cell receptor (TCR) chimeric T cell technology , also known as affinity-enhanced TCR” technology .

Its purpose is to make its own killer T cells more capable of recognizing, because the original T cells are against The recognition ability of tumor-associated antigens is weak, and the recognition affinity is now enhanced through genetic modification, so that T cells can attack tumor cells and achieve the effect of treating tumors.

 

TCR-T therapy needs to obtain T cells from patients, equip T cells with new T cell receptors, so that they can target specific cancer antigen therapy, this new type of therapy can allow doctors to treat each patient’s tumor and Different types of T cells can be engineered to select the most appropriate targets, allowing treatment to be individualized and giving patients hope for greater remission.

 

TCR-T cell immunotherapy has achieved good results in the treatment of some solid tumors , especially the clinical data on liver cancer, melanoma, and synovial cell sarcoma have shown strong anticancer activity . It is believed that this therapy will bear fruit in various solid tumors in the future.

 

What is exciting is that in addition to TCR-T therapy, T cell-based CAR-T therapy and TIL therapy have also made unprecedented breakthroughs in the past two years.

 

At present, three types of T-cell-based immunotherapy have been released, and awakening the T-cell army in the body to wipe out tumors in one fell swoop will gradually become a reality, bringing more treatment options to cancer patients.

 

At the same time, patients need to be reminded that the treatment of tumors must rely on the formal treatment of authoritative hospitals and experts.

After conventional treatment methods (surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy), according to their own economic conditions, adjuvant immunotherapy and other comprehensive therapies, Achieve consolidation treatment, prevent recurrence, improve the quality of life, prolong the purpose of survival, and finally achieve success in anti-cancer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

【1】Rom Leidner, MD et al. Neoantigen T-Cell Receptor Gene Therapy in Pancreatic Cancer. June 2, 2022N Engl J Med 2022; 386:21122119DOI:10.1056/NEJMoa2119662

New breakthrough in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: The tumor shrank by 72%

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