Cancer Treatment coming soon ! Thanks to Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy has given a hope to millions of cancer patients as clinical trial for cancer treatment done on 90 mice was made public a few days ago. Such research might sound cruel for these mice but it can give humans a good cancer treatment. This successful clinical trial has attracted the attention of both doctors and cancer patients around the world. Now the pharma companies and scientific community are looking towards immunotherapy as a medical revolution of the 21st century.

According to Ronald Levy, MD, professor of oncology at Stanford School of Medicine, they run the trial on 90 mice after transplanting lymphoma tumors on two sites on their body. Then they injected two agents into one of the tumor. The results were surprising as it cured 87 mice. It not only regressed the tumor injected with agents, but also the other tumor. Remaining three mice, which were not cured, went through the same procedure again and got cured.

How does our immune system struggles with cancer normally ?
Our body have T-Cells which are part of out immune system. As soon as T-cells recognize the proteins present on cancer cells, it tries to attack them and kill them. But as the cancer tumor grows the activity of T-cells is suppressed, which leads to further development of cancer.

How does immunotherapy cures cancer ?
Some agents are injected into the cancerous tumor, which activates the suppressed T-cells again and they start killing cancer cells.

How does Professor Levy's method Work ?
He and his team has developed two immunotherapy agents for this approach. Both of these agents are injected into cancerous tumor in micogram amount, which is one-millionth of a gram. A short stretch of DNA called a CpG oligonucleotide, finds the T-cells already present in the tumor and amplifies the expression of OX40 (its activating receptor). The other agent, which is an antibody, binds itself to OX40 and activates the T-cell for fight against cancer cells. As those T-cells were already inside the tumor and sent by body to destroy cancer-specific protein, they act as a better destroyer of cancer cells, just by improving their expression and activation.
This approach not only treated the tumor injected with agents, but also the second one in those 90 mice. These results made this immunotherapy approach more interesting. However the above approach was initially used to treat lymphoma tumors, but the researchers witnessed similar results in breast, colon and melanoma (skin cancer) tumors.

Now as the world is waiting for human trials to be completed successfully, some lymphoma patients are already enrolling themselves for the clinical trials. We hope that all those who enroll themselves in this trial get cured successfully and open the gates to cancer treatment.

Reference:
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccine-eliminates-tumors-in-mice.html