When surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy have failed in cancer treatment, the last treatment is immunotherapy. It strengthens the body’s immune system so that it can target and eliminate cancer cells. However, if the cancer cells become resistant to immunotherapy, it is of no use.
A drug combination that is effective in eradicating cancer cells resistant to immunotherapy has been developed. This was reported by the British Guardian on the 22nd (local time), who obtained a paper from a researcher at the British Cancer Institute (ICR), which is scheduled to be published in The Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.
The research team found that more than one-third of the 34 patients who participated in the initial phase 1 clinical trial of a treatment that combines pembrolizumab, an existing immunotherapy, and guadecitabine, a DNA hypomethylation agent, had the effect of stopping cancer progression. said to have seen Pembrolizumab has been proven to be effective in the treatment of various cancers, including lung and skin cancer, but it has the side effect of causing cancer cells to become resistant. To compensate for this, the researchers found that guadecitabine, which was developed to inhibit DNA methylation, which is known to cause cancer cells, can also inhibit the ability of cancer cells to become resistant.
Thirty-four patients who participated in the clinical trial were lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer patients, who received injections once every three weeks for four days for three years. Pembrolizumab was given only on the first day and guadecitabine was given for 4 days in a row. Thirty out of 34 patients also underwent a tumor assay to measure immune activity and cancer growth. Of the 30 patients who underwent tumor analysis, 37% had tumors that stopped growing for more than 24 weeks. Of these, three-fifths (60%) were resistant to immunotherapy prior to participation in the clinical trial. Of these, 39% did not get worse after receiving the drug combination.
This new treatment could be especially helpful for people with lung cancer. Among lung cancer patients who were resistant to immunotherapy, tumors stopped growing for more than 24 weeks.
Professor Johann de Bono, an oncologist at the Cancer Institute who led this clinical trial, said, “Immunotherapy has shown remarkable promise in cancer treatment over the past decade, but it is not effective for all cancers and has not been effective when resistance develops.” “We hope that the combined effect of pembrolizumab and guadecitabine will help solve the problem of various immunotherapy.” Cancer experts say this combination of drugs could be an effective new weapon against several forms of cancer.
The paper can be found at the following link (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028390822002325?via%3Dihub).
By Han Gun-pil, reporter [email protected]
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