Immunotherapy

Chicagoan

Thought you would enjoy this article about a woman who has been cured of MBC through immunotherapy. I"ll try and find other sources to see if her cancer was hormone responsive, Triple Negative or HR+.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5804011/...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/06/04/615673436/therapy-made-from-patients-immune-system-shows-promise-for-advanced-breast-cance

Chicagoan

Here's the abstract from Nature Medicine journal. She had HR+ cancer.

Immunotherapy using either checkpoint blockade or the adoptive transfer of antitumor lymphocytes has shown effectiveness in treating cancers with high levels of somatic mutations—such as melanoma, smoking-induced lung cancers and bladder cancer—with little effect in other common epithelial cancers that have lower mutation rates, such as those arising in the gastrointestinal tract, breast and ovary1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Adoptive transfer of autologous lymphocytes that specifically target proteins encoded by somatically mutated genes has mediated substantial objective clinical regressions in patients with metastatic bile duct, colon and cervical cancers8,9,10,11. We present a patient with chemorefractory hormone receptor (HR)-positive metastatic breast cancer who was treated with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) reactive against mutant versions of four proteins—SLC3A2, KIAA0368, CADPS2 and CTSB. Adoptive transfer of these mutant-protein-specific TILs in conjunction with interleukin (IL)-2 and checkpoint blockade mediated the complete durable regression of metastatic breast cancer, which is now ongoing for >22 months, and it represents a new immunotherapy approach for the treatment of these patients.

Cure-ious

She was lucky that her cancer expressed a surface antigen that CAR-T can go after, however it shows the incredible power of that technique.

A recent Nature paper reports a chance finding that inactivation of Tet2 protein makes CAR-T work way better, with far fewer engineered T cells required, and without exhausting the T cell response. This may also make the approach work in a much larger number of patients. Now we just have to find a target on MBC cells that the CAR-T cells can hone in on, and a drug to increase T cell infiltration into our tumors. A big task to ask for, but still fully within the realm of possibility!!!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05251-5

Heidihill

I love the pictures of Judy Perkins hiking and kayaking!! She's inspirational. I mean she was hiking the Appalachian Trail when she started immunotherapy. I submit that this also had something to do with her amazing response.

While I love her story, I just can't get over the complexity and hence expense of these procedures. Herceptin is straightforward and cheap compared to this. There must be some other solution for ER+. 

SandiBeach57

http://melissabingham.blogspot.com

Another Steven Rosenberg trial patient. Melissa Bingham is currently being evaluated. I follow her blog.

Chicagoan

Sandibeach-Thanks for linking Melissa's blog. Let's hope this works for her (and for all of us).