New research indicates that earlier immunotherapy in combination with normal chemotherapy may be needed to treat stomach cancer, which is often resistant to the treatment.
“Patients with advanced stomach cancer have limited treatment options,” says Woosook Kim, PhD, first author of the paper. “Many are not eligible for surgical resection, and response to radiotherapy or chemotherapy is often low.”
Many cancers release proteins that prevent the immune system from attacking them; immunotherapy blocks these proteins, re-enabling the immune system’s attack. However, current immunotherapy drugs do not work very well for stomach cancer. Looking at advanced tumours in mice, researchers discovered that they have abundant myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which release even more immune system-blocking proteins, swamping the immunotherapy drugs.
“Our study suggests that adding chemotherapy to immunotherapy may improve responsiveness in part through the targeting of MDSCs,” said Timothy Wang, MD, the study leader. “While we do not have enough information to determine if the level of MDSCs may predict response to this dual regimen, our findings show that administering immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy earlier in the course of the disease, when MDSC levels are much lower, may boost response rates in stomach cancer,” Wang concluded.
Source: Medical Xpress
