How Immunotherapy Is Making an Impact in Ovarian Cancer
In Australia 5 women in 1000 will develop advanced ovarian cancer by the age of 60. Progression free survival is improving, but overall survival is unchanged for the last 20 years. A need for alternate therapy has led to much clinical research. Immunotherapy is promoted as a great prospect for change. Recently Dmitriy Zamarin, M.D. from Sloane Kettering spoke about various approaches: -
Check point inhibition; cancer develops when normal mutated cell death is prevented. Inhibition of this is good therapy in other cancers such as Keytruda for melanoma. Clinical trials have failed to show any benefit for ovarian cancer.
Oncolytic virus therapy; vaccination with genetically modified adenovirus makes cancer cells vulnerable to killer T cells, these form in the patient’s thymus gland in response to disease. This is subject to clinical trial.
CAR T therapy; this process involves in vitro genetic modification of killer T cells. Although shown to be good for cancers of the blood, such as Kymriah for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, no benefit is yet proved for solid tumours such as ovarian cancer. This too is subject to clinical trial.
It is early in a new field of research. What is clear is that each patient is different, the environment in which cancer exists is just as important as the tumour cell genetic type; targeted therapy is essential to change the current grim prospect.
T vs. C
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