Study Discovers Possible Reason for Immunotherapy Not Working in Some Patients

Researchers at the University of Connecticut may have found one of the reasons why immunotherapy can be so effective in some patients but completely fail to offer other patients any meaningful benefit. Immunotherapy has a long history, with a major milestone in 2011 when the FDA approved the first immune checkpoint inhibitor.

Patients who respond positively to immunotherapy tend to have much higher long-term survival rates compared to those that don’t get this treatment. However, just 20-40% of lung cancer patients respond to certain immunotherapies, meaning a massive portion of people simply don’t respond to immunotherapy after they begin cancer treatment. Researchers have spent years trying to figure out what makes immunotherapy so effective in some patients but barely functional in others.

According to MD-PhD candidate and lead study author Ryan Englander, the research team may have discovered a clue to the selective effectiveness of immunotherapy. Their findings suggest that this discrepancy could be a side effect of the way cancer cells execute the genetic instructions behind protein production, and it could open the door to more effective immunotherapy-based outcomes for cancer patients.

Published in the journalScience, the findings offer insight into the connection between cancer patients and cell functions. Englander says he is passionate about doing complicated scientific work and then figuring out how to use the findings to help people in the real world. The desire to incorporate research into practical applications for patients is the core driver behind the efforts to understand why certain immunotherapies aren’t effective for 60-80% of lung cancer patients.

Jackson Laboratory’s media relations manager Patrick Skahill explains that the research team discovered changes which altered how tumor cells responded to immune system signals. These changes also play a role in the discrepancy between patients who respond to immunotherapy and those who don’t. Their findings may have potentially opened the door to a future where doctors can predict which patients will respond to which treatment with significant accuracy.

There are over 20 million new cancer diagnoses each year and millions of people across the globe succumb to the condition annually. In the U.S., lung cancer ranks as the second most common type of cancer behind breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. It is also the top cause of cancer-related deaths in the country, but a small portion of lung cancer patients actually respond to immunotherapy, making the recent discovery critical for millions of Americans and their families.

Whether or not this discovery impacts the trajectory of immunotherapies under development at companies like Calidi Biotherapeutics Inc. (NYSE American: CLDI) remains to be seen since the research findings are yet to be tested in a larger patient population.

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