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A City of Hope study suggests that a special blood test might one day predict whether a newly diagnosed bad cancer patient will likely relapse several years later.
This is the first success of a solid tumor with blood biomarkers – an indicator of whether a patient will remain in remission. When cancer is diagnosed for the first time, it is important to identify those who are at higher risk of relapse for more aggressive treatments and monitoring. Staging and new tests based on genomic badysis of the tumor are currently available for risk stratification. However, a predictive blood test would be even more appealing but is not yet available. We are trying to change the status quo. "
Peter P. Lee, M.D., Director of the Department of Immuno-Oncology of the City of Hope, Corresponding author of the study
The effectiveness of a person's anti-tumor immune response depends on the balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory signaling pathways in response to cytokines, according to the July 8 Nature Immunology study. Lee and colleagues used data from 40 bad cancer patients followed for an average of four years. The results were validated in a separate cohort of 38 additional bad cancer patients to create a baseline to predict whether a patient with bad cancer will likely relapse in a few years.
The balance of cytokine signaling responses in "peripheral blood immune cells" – the engine of a healthy immune system – is an indicator of the general state of the immune system. a person, said Lee, Professor Billy and Audrey L. Wilder in Oncology, Immunotherapeutics at City of Hope.
"These discoveries could therefore go beyond cancer to attack other diseases that the immune system must fight," he added. "This general approach may also be useful for predicting outcomes in patients with autoimmune and infectious diseases."
The peripheral blood immune cells of a cancer patient, an essential part of the immune system, tend to have a decrease in pro-inflammatory cytokine signaling responses and an increase in immunosuppressive cytokine signaling responses, which which means that a systemic immune environment is created, which promotes the spread of cancer.
Lee and colleagues have badyzed the signaling responses to many pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines in different types of immune cells present in the peripheral blood of bad cancer patients and recently diagnosed. They found a change in signaling of four different cytokines (two pro and two anti-inflammatory drugs) in regulatory T cells in some patients. These cytokine signaling patterns in peripheral blood at the time of diagnosis reflect the state of the immune system and predict a relapse within three to five years.
Scientists used their data to create a cytokine signaling index (CSI), a kind of reference. The idea is that a patient can submit to a blood test and follow up his data using an algorithm that will issue a figure telling doctors what is the risk of cancer recurrence for the patient within a timeframe. three to five years.
"Knowing the risk of cancer relapse will tell doctors how important a patient's cancer treatment should be," said Lee. "The CSI is a comprehensive reflection of the patient's immune system at the time of diagnosis, which, as we now know, is a determinant of future relapse."
UCLA scientists also contributed to the study, funded by the US Department of Defense bad cancer research program, Stand up to Cancer, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the Foundation. V.
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