Antibody that blocks programmed cell death benefits cancer patients Published on June 14, 2012 A
national research collaboration of senior researchers, including a researcher
from Moffitt Cancer Center, has found that 20 to 25 percent of "heavily
pre-treated" patients with a variety of cancers who enrolled in a clinical
trial had "objective and durable" responses to a treatment with
BMS-936558, an antibody that specifically blocks programmed cell death 1 (PD-1).
PD-1 is a key immune "checkpoint" receptor expressed by activated
immune cells (T-cells) and is involved in the suppression of immunity. The clinical trial, designed to assess the
anti-tumor activity and safety of the treatment, was conducted with the help of
296 patients with a variety of cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer,
melanoma and renal cell cancer, among others. Study results were published in a
recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine. According to study co-author Scott J.
Antonia, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Thoracic Oncology Program and co-chair of
the Immunology Program at Moffitt, tumors can develop multiple resistance
mechanisms to evade natural destruction by the body's immune system. Tumors may
do this by exploiting a variety of biochemical pathways that lead to
"immune checkpoints" where immune responses that might get through
the checkpoints and otherwise help destroy tumor cells are, instead,
terminated. "There have been recent
intensive efforts to develop immunotherapeutic approaches to treat cancer,
including efforts to develop immune-checkpoint-pathway inhibitors,"
Antonia said. "A particular challenge in cancer immunotherapy has been to
find the mechanism-based biomarkers that could be used to identify patients
whose tumors are candidates for immune treatment."
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