T Cell Immunotherapy an Improvement Over Checkpoint Inhibition

Researchers here report on the results of a phase III trial of tumor infiltrating leukocyte (TIL) therapy for melanoma. A patient's T cells are multiplied outside the body and then injected, along with chemotherapy beforehand to clear existing T cell populations, and IL-2 delivery afterwards to promote replication of the delivered T cells. It has meaningful side-effects, as do other cancer immunotherapies, but the outcome is an improvement over the present standard approach of checkpoint inhibition for melanoma. Even as better approaches to cancer therapy are in development, such as those based on interference in telomere lengthening, we should expect to see continued iteration and improvement in immunotherapies. Melanoma is an aggressive type of skin cancer. Ten years ago, metastatic melanoma was almost certainly a death sentence within a year after diagnosis. "Ten years ago, melanoma had such a bad prognosis that I would be seeing an entirely new patient population every year - but now I've been seeing some patients for ten years. This is largely due to the discovery of immunotherapy, which has revolutionized treatment for melanoma. But we still see that about half of the people diagnosed with metastatic melanoma succumb within five years, so we're still not where we want to be - not at all." TIL stands for tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes: immune cells, T cells in this case, that have entered the tumor. The body trains these T cells to recognize and then kill...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs