A drug used against allergies and asthma helps activate the immune system to act against tumor cells in lung cancer.
- The use of an anti-allergic drug improves the effectiveness of immunotherapy in lung cancer.
- American researchers confirmed this in a trial on mice and on a group of treatment-resistant patients.
- A trial with a larger group of participants will need to be carried out to confirm these results.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. To treat it, several treatments are used, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy. Scientists are working on new techniques to improve their effectiveness and allow patients to gain life expectancy. In the latest issue of the magazine Naturepublished on December 6, American researchers present one of these new treatment options: the combined use of an anti-allergic drug with immunotherapy to boost the immune system against tumors.
How to improve the immune response in the treatment of lung cancer?
“Immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of lung cancer, but currently only about a third of patients respond and in most patients the benefit is temporary.explains the study’s lead author, Miriam Merad, director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute and director of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A primary goal of our research program, called TARGET, is to use single-cell technology and artificial intelligence to identify molecular immune patterns capable of attenuating the tumor’s immune response to checkpoint blockade.”
Lung cancer and immunotherapy: a human and mouse trial
Also known as a PD1 inhibitor, checkpoint blockade is a type of cancer immunotherapy that helps stimulate the anticancer activity of T cells, immune cells. These specialists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York have identified an allergic pathway which, when blocked, releases this anti-tumor immunity in mice suffering from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Then, they conducted a trial in a group of human patients, where immunotherapy was combined with dupilumab, an interleukin-4 (IL-4) receptor-blocking antibody widely used to treat allergies and asthma.
Lung cancer: the effectiveness of anti-allergic treatment combined with immunotherapy
Previously, the research team found that immune cells infiltrating lung cancers showed characteristics of a type 2 immune response, typically associated with allergic conditions such as eczema and asthma. “These results led us to explore whether we could re-employ a drug typically used for allergic conditions to improve tumor response to checkpoint blockade.“, specifies Thomas Marron, co-lead author of the study. “Strikingly, we found that blocking IL-4 improved the response of lung cancer to checkpoint blockade in mice and in six lung cancer patients with treatment-resistant disease, rejoices the researcher. In fact, one patient whose lung cancer grew despite checkpoint blockage saw almost all of his cancer disappear after receiving just three doses of the allergy medication, and his cancer remains controlled today, more than 17 months later.” Other clinical trials will have to confirm these initial results, with larger groups of patients.
