“Learn- What is immunotherapy for cancer? Explore the types, benefits, and side effects of this innovative treatment approach. Find hope and possibilities in your cancer journey.”

What is immunotherapy for cancer?

Let’s talk about something amazing called immunotherapy for cancer. It is a great way of treating cancer that is different from the usual methods. Instead of attacking cancer cells directly, immunotherapy uses your immune system to find and destroy them. By strengthening your immune system, immunotherapy opens the door to new possibilities for treating cancer effectively.

Different types of immunotherapies for cancer

Checkpoint inhibitors: These special drugs work by blocking proteins that prevent your immune cells from attacking cancer cells. By removing these barriers, checkpoint inhibitors allow your immune system to better recognize and eliminate cancer cells.

CAR-T cell therapy: this treatment is extremely innovative! It changes your immune cells so they can recognize and attack cancer cells. CAR-T cell therapy has shown incredible success in treating certain types of cancer and has even led to long-term remission in some cases.

immune system modulators:

These drugs help regulate and strengthen your immune system’s response to cancer. They make your immune cells more active, boost anti-cancer immunity, and slow tumor growth.

Benefits and Efficacy of Immunotherapy

Some major advantages of immunotherapy in cancer treatment

1. Targeted treatment: Immunotherapy focuses specifically on cancer cells, leaving healthy cells alone. This means fewer side effects and improved quality of life for patients.
2. Improved immune response: By increasing your immune system’s ability to find and destroy cancer cells, immunotherapy strengthens your body’s natural defenses. It’s like giving your immune system a boost against disease.
3. Potential for long-term remission: In some cases, immunotherapy has shown excellent results in achieving long-term remission. It offers hope to patients and their loved ones by offering long-term survival rates and the possibility of long-lasting responses.
4. More treatment options: For patients who don’t respond well to traditional treatments like chemotherapy or radiation, immunotherapy offers them another option. This expands the range of treatments available, especially for advanced or difficult-to-treat cancers.

Side Effects of Immunotherapy

Although immunotherapy is a game-changer in cancer treatment, it is important to be aware of potential side effects. Here are a few common ones:

Fatigue: You may feel more tired and have less energy during treatment. It is essential to rest and do things that help you relax and feel good.

Flu-like symptoms: Some people may experience flu-like symptoms, such as fever, chills, muscle aches, and headaches. Don’t worry; These symptoms are usually temporary and can be managed with care and support.

Autoimmune reactions: Sometimes, immunotherapy can cause your immune system to mistakenly attack healthy tissues and organs. It can cause inflammation and damage to certain parts of your body. Regular monitoring by healthcare professionals is crucial to promptly catch and manage these reactions.

Remember, if you experience any symptoms or concerns, be sure to talk to your healthcare team. They will assess your situation and help manage any side effects you may have.

Personalized immunotherapy and clinical trials

Personalized immunotherapy takes into account your unique factors, such as your type of cancer, your genetic profile, and the characteristics of your immune system. By tailoring treatment to your specific needs, personalized immunotherapy has the potential to improve treatment outcomes and response.

Clinical trials are crucial to the advancement of immunotherapy for cancer. These trials test new treatment strategies, combinations of therapies, and innovative immunotherapy drugs. Participating in clinical trials not only gives you access to modern treatments but also contributes to the development of more effective immunotherapies and expands our knowledge about them.

Immunotherapy for blood cancer

“Immunotherapy techniques aim to use cells from the patient’s immune system to destroy tumor cells. CAR T cell therapy is an immunotherapy effective in treating blood cancers. About 35,000 people are diagnosed with blood cancer in France each year, with 1.24 million cases worldwide. By closely investigating some of the immune cells generated during this therapy, known as CD4 T cells, scientists from the Institut Pasteur and Inserm, in collaboration with physicians from the Paris Public Hospital Network (AP-HP), discovered that these cells are capable of Distantly neutralizing tumor cells by producing interferon-gamma (IFN-γ).

This study offers new hope for blood cancer patients with incomplete responses to CAR T cell therapy and cancers sensitive to IFN-γ. The results were published in the journal Nature Cancer.

CAR T cell therapy is an immunotherapy that has shown remarkable results in treating certain types of leukemia or lymphoma. But some patients who receive this treatment relapse because their tumor cells escape therapy. A multidisciplinary team of scientists from the Paris Public Hospital Network (AP-HP) Institut Pasteur and Inserm and clinicians tried to shed light on how the therapy works to obtain a more effective response.

The principle of CAR T cell therapy is to isolate a patient’s T cells, genetically modify them so that they specifically target tumor cells, and multiply them before re-injecting them into the patient. This army of killer CAR T cells is composed of CD4 T cells and CD8 T cells in varying proportions from one patient to another. Although we know that CD8 killer T cells must directly interact with tumor cells to destroy them, the mechanism of action of CD4 T cells has not been fully explored before.

The research team studied these CD4 CAR T cells more closely and revealed a very interesting feature: their ability to kill tumor cells from afar by secreting a molecule involved in immunity, interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). “For some types of cancer that are sensitive to IFN-γ, this destruction process is very effective. We also noticed that, in patients with high amounts of CD4 T cells, those who produce large amounts of IFN-γ respond better to treatment,” explains Philippe Busso, head of the Dynamics of Immune Response Unit at the Institut Pasteur (INSARM 1223) and last author of the study.

To reveal the novel mechanism of action of these distant killer cells, the scientists began by exploring preclinical models to analyze the process in detail, particularly using in vivo imaging techniques, then they tested the relevance of the findings in patient samples.

“This discovery opens new avenues for adjusting treatment to prevent tumor cells from evading CAR T therapy. It raises new therapeutic hope for patients, offering the possibility of a more personalized treatment approach where a larger volume of CD4 CAR T cells can be used.” activate IFN-γ depending on the sensitivity of the tumor cells,” commented Philippe Busso.

With a better understanding of how CD4 T killer cells function, it may also be possible to extend the scope of this therapy to other solid tumor cancers sensitive to IFN-γ. Clinical data will be confirmed in other cohorts.”

Improved Immunotherapy Responses For Lymphoma Patients

A new study has revealed how fibroblast cells found within lymphoma tumors interfere with immune cells, also known as T cells and the action of immunotherapy drugs that stimulate T cells to attack cancer.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, demonstrates the potential of harnessing these abnormal fibroblasts to help regenerate T cells using novel tumor and fibroblast-targeted combination immunotherapy drugs.

Fibroblast cells are a type of cell that plays an essential role in maintaining the structure and integrity of our body tissues. They are also gate-keepers of the immune response, providing highways for rapid immune cell movement and crucially fine-tuning immune cell function. They can be found in the tumor stroma – the environment or surroundings of the tumor made up of various cells.

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive B cell cancer found in a patient’s lymph node tissue and is the most common type of lymphoma. Although there have been encouraging advances in the development of immunotherapies for this disease – including CAR-T cell therapy and T cell bi-specific antibodies – clinical responses are still elusive for many patients.

The researchers found that cancerous B cells reprogram lymph node fibroblasts, causing a switch from immune-supportive to immunosuppressive activity. This has important implications for how lymphoma escapes the action of immune cells that can attack cancer – as well as the potential to optimize future immunotherapies.

Lymphoma-exposed fibroblasts were shown to inhibit the migration of T cells and CAR-T cells and to suppress the function of anti-cancer CD8+ T cells in an antigen-specific manner. Importantly, the work demonstrates the potential to manipulate fibroblasts within these tumors, exploiting the increased expression of fibroblast activation protein (FAP) in the stromal compartment using FAP-targeted agonist drugs—including a bispecific antibody-like fusion protein.

This preclinical science study opens up the possibility of combining stroma (FAP)-targeted therapies to improve the activity of current immunotherapies such as T cell bispecific antibodies.

We believe this paper describes translationally relevant data that provide important knowledge about how patients can avoid the detection of lymphoma by the immune system. Encouragingly, our study identifies a novel treatment approach that may improve immunotherapy response in cancer patients.”

Ocular Toxicity Profile of Targeted Cancer Therapy (TCT)

Objective: Targeted cancer therapy (TCT) is a significant advance in oncology with promising improvement in the survival of cancer patients and a significant impact on various cancers. There is evidence to suggest an association between specific TCT classes and the occurrence of immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Our study aims to investigate the potential ocular toxicities of different classes of TCT, to provide a better understanding of these toxicities, and to aid in the future development of screening and management recommendations for ocular IRAE.

Design: Retrospective observational case series.

Participants: Only ocular immune-related AEs were included in the study; Patients who received a new eye disease diagnosis at TCT were seen at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Methods: Between 2010 and 2019, we reviewed the medical records of 6,354 patients undergoing TCT at a large US tertiary cancer center.

Results: Data analysis criteria were met by 1861 patients. TCT was associated with a wide range of class-specific ocular IRAS. There was a statistically significant association between ocular toxicity with polytherapy with a p-value of <0.001. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant correlation between toxicity and BRAF, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and ICI <0.001, <0.001, and 0.006, respectively.

Conclusions: Our cohort is the most comprehensive case series in the English literature demonstrating an increased risk of class-specific ocular toxicity associated with TCT, which sheds some light on the importance of developing standardized grading criteria and management guidelines.