A drug used to treat leukemia can enhance the efficacy of immunotherapy for lung cancer, researchers at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) found, saying that the discovery might increase the life expectancy of those with the disease.
The team led by Tsai Hsing-chen (蔡幸真), a doctor in the hospital’s internal medicine department, told a news conference in Taipei on Thursday that new treatments for lung cancer are urgently needed, adding that the disease kills more than 9,000 people per year in Taiwan, as it is often discovered at a late stage.
People with advanced lung cancer have in the past few years increasingly received immunotherapy, which seeks to boost the body’s immune defenses and has fewer side effects than chemotherapy, Tsai said.
However, immunotherapy is only suitable for about 50 percent of people with lung cancer, with long-lasting results for about 30 percent of those who receive it, NTUH thoracic oncology department director Shih Jin-yuan (施金元) said.
The hospital’s four-year research project sought to make immunotherapy an option for more people with the disease and increase its efficacy, NTUH said.
The team found that decitabine, a drug that blocks the activity of enzymes that facilitate the spread of cancer cells in myeloid leukemia patients, also increases the number of a certain type of receptor on the surface of lung cancer cells, Tsai said.
This made the cancer cells more vulnerable to the immune system’s gamma delta T cells, she added.
Although there is a limited number of gamma delta T cells in the body, the cells can be cultivated in the laboratory and administered together with decitabine, Tsai said.
In experiments on mice, the team found that the treatment reduced the size of lung tumors and increased life expectancy, she said.
The hospital is planning to apply for clinical trials, Tsai said, adding that similar treatments could be developed for other types of cancer, including colon and ovarian cancer.
The researchers’ findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications on Monday last week.
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