Cancer treatment routinely involves the extraction of lymph nodes near the tumor in case they contain metastatic cancer cells. But new findings from a clinical study conducted by researchers at theuc san francisco e del Gladstone Institutes show that immunotherapy can activate tumor-fighting T cells in nearby lymph nodes.
The study, published in Cellsuggests that leaving lymph nodes intact until after immunotherapy could increase efficacy against solid tumors, only a small fraction of which currently respond to these new types of treatments.
“This work really changes our thinking about the importance of keeping lymph nodes in the body during treatment“, afferma Matt Spitzer, PhD, ricercatore del Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology.
Lymph nodes are often removed because they’re typically the first place metastatic cancer cells appear, and without surgery, it can be difficult to determine whether lymph nodes contain metastases.
“Immunotherapy is designed to jump-start the immune response, but when we kill nearby lymph nodes before treatment, we’re essentially removing key locations where T cells live and can be activatedSpitzer says, noting that the evidence supporting lymph node removal comes from previous studies that predate the use of today’s immunotherapies.
“Removing lymph nodes with metastatic cancer cells is probably still important, but removing them before immunotherapy treatment could throw the baby out with the bathwater“, afferma Spitzer.
Read the full text of the article:
Dynamic CD8+ T cell responses to cancer immunotherapy in human regional lymph nodes are disrupted in metastatic lymph nodes
Maha K. Rahim, Trine Line H. Okholm, Kyle B. Jones, Elizabeth E. McCarthy, Candace C. Liu, Jacqueline L. Yee, Stanley J. Tamaki, Diana M. Marquez, Iliana Tenvooren, Katherine Wai, Alexander Cheung, Brittany R. Davidson, Vrinda Johri, Bushra Samad, William E. O’Gorman, Matthew F. Krummel,Annemieke van Zante, Alexis J. Combes, Michael Angelo, Lawrence Fong, Alain P. Algazi,Patrick Ha, Matthew H. Spitzer.
Cell VOLUME 186, ISSUE 6, P1127-1143.E18, MARCH 16, 2023 DOI:
Sources: University of California San Francisco – Gladstone Institutes