23
Jul 2019
Vaccine ‘supercharges immune system’, destroying ‘up to 60% of hard-to-treat tumours in the breast and lungs
Scientists in the States have developed a vaccine that boosts a patient’s cancer-fighting cells, allowing more of them to penetrate stubborn tumours.
When cancer-ridden mice were given the vaccine alongside CAR-T cell therapy (which involves programming a patient’s immune cells to destroy tumours) the treatment combination completely eradicated solid tumours in 60 per cent of cases.
They were also able to fight off recurring tumours for several months following the vaccine, suggesting the treatment stimulates the production of ‘memory cells’, primed to recognise and attack cancer cells.
Darrell Irvine, study author, said “By adding the vaccine, a CAR-T cell treatment which had no impact on survival can be amplified. This gives it a complete response in more than half the animals.
“Our hypothesis was if you boosted those T cells through their CAR receptor in the lymph node, they would receive the right set of priming cues to make them more functional. Then they’d be resistant to shutdown and would still function when they got into the tumour.”
“If we take the animals that appear to be cured and we re-challenge them with tumour cells, they will reject all of them. That is another exciting aspect of this strategy.
“You need to have T cells attacking many different antigens to succeed, because if you have a CAR-T cell that sees only one antigen, then the tumour only has to mutate that one antigen to escape immune attack.”
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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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