Hitchhiking cancer vaccine makes progress in the clinic
news.mit.edu
news.mit.edu
I hope that if this works well, then they can use the same carrier molecule to deliver vaccines specific to other tumor antigens than KRAS? Wouldn’t the approach of targeting lymph nodes also improve non-cancer vaccines too, or other immunotherapies such as immunosuppression in transplant patients which would permit a lower dose?
One thing I still don’t understand though is why immune based therapies in cancer patients are given after chemotherapy, which destroys the immune system.
I understand that once tumors get to a certain size it’s dangerous not to throw our most effective option at them, but it seems like earlier screening + earlier immunotherapy would work better for the general population, and chemo could be used as a last resort. After all you typically don’t wait until someone has a disease to give them a vaccine.
Does anyone know the state of using immunotherapies as first line treatment (even in cancers where chemo “works well” in initial treatment?
Compared to immunotherapy, chemo really looks like an ancient technology. Hope immuno gets even better.
Chemo drugs are brutal. I was just reading a study the other day that some testicular cancer survivors treated with cisplatin will have measurable, reactive cisplatin in their blood plasma 20 years after treatment. The stuff really is poison.
And to qualify for the vast majority of clinical trials you need to have failed existing treatments (chemo) before testing the new stuff.
Also, if the immunotherapy gives you colitis, then chemotherapy should shut that down too (it is already used in bad cases of colitis, e.g. methotraxate, cyclophosphamide)
No you don't need to have failed other treatments before being added to a clinical trial. Quite the opposite in many cases - they have entry criteria so that they can be sure any effects (good or bad) can be linked to the trial and not from something else.
No if you got colitis from immuno, chemo won't "reset" it, but strong doses of steroids might. (We discontinued my immuno before I got to that point.)
"for the vast majority of clinical trials" is what I said
> No you don't need to have failed other treatments before being added to a clinical trial
That wasn't my experience when looking for trials for my mom's metastatic cancer, but I hope you're right.
> No if you got colitis from immuno, chemo won't "reset" it, but strong doses of steroids might.
Two things can be true at once. I didn't say it's curative (neither are steroids), but chemo drugs can be given for severe uncontrolled autoimmune disease, because they are immunosuppressive.
> We discontinued my immuno before I got to that point
Too bad, I studied it for several years and my mom was a specialist on the adaptive immune system.
Then stop talking like you understand cancer treatment or clinical trials, because it is exactly how it works for thousands of people every year.
> Too bad
Pardon me? "Too bad" that I had recurrence of cancer and that immunotherapy was starting to cause colitis? Immunotherapy which turned out was never going to work because of the genetics of my cancer, the sequencing of which was completed thanks to one of the multiple clinical trials I'm on.
I'm sorry about your mother, but spreading your ignorance does not help other people.
What type of cancer were you diagnosed with?
That's a pretty gross oversimplification. Chemotherapy isn't one thing, it's a whole range of cocktails of drugs given in different combinations and doses for different specific cancers (even different sub-types of cancers).
They do generally weaken it, but most chemo doesn't "destroy" the immune system at all.
I know that I am oversimplifying. However, generally chemotherapy works by killing rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer cells, hair cells, bone marrow progenitor cells, and immune cells at the tumor site. So yes, it does often functionally destroy/reboot the immune system. If you know of a chemo combo for solid tumors which doesn't lead to neutropenia or other functional immune depletions, please let me know.
My cousin and I had different cancers. Both of us had cisplatin. At the dose I had, my hair was gone. He hardly lost any hair and wasn't even that sick.
We also have drugs to offset the immune problems by sending your bone marrow into overdrive. My first cycle of cisplatin knocked my ANC to effectively zero. I was given additional meds on subsequent cycles and didn't have that problem again. (Said drugs are expensive and give you a special kind of bone pain that's hard to describe, so are apparently not given unless you have problems).
Chemo is effective for a few cancers but not for others. Immuno might be the most effective for those. Or chemo followed by immuno. Maybe it is CRT (chemoradio).
Or maybe there is no systemic treatment and all we can use is surgery and then maybe RT.
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-engineer-human-t-cells-1...
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...