Immune System-What's Your Role Here?

Researchers at University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center have discovered a novel way of treating pancreatic cancer by activating the immune system to destroy the cancer's scaffolding.  This was tested in a small group of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and several patients had positive results with their tumors shrinking substantially.

Rather than the immune system needing to attack the cancer directly to be effective, attacking the dense tissues surrounding the cancer is an approach, similar to attacking a brick wall by dissolving the mortar in the wall.

The immune system was able to eat away at this tissue surrounding the cancer and tumors fell apart as a result of that assault.

However, when looking at post-treatment tumor samples, researchers found there were no T cells to be seen.  Instead, there was an abundance of another white blood cell known as macrophages.  Macrophages were attacking what is known as the supporting tissue around the tumor called the tumor stroma.  Researchers used a cell surface receptor called CD40 antibodies to teach the macrophages to attack the tumor.  T cells can't seem to get into the tumor or its surrounding tissue because of the density and hostility of the area surrounding pancreatic cancer.  They are now working on a way to supercharge the macrophages response and to get the T cells into the tumor's microenvironment.

So basically, if scientists can get T-cells and the macrophages to double team the tumor, they could overpower the tumor.  Let's hope this trial continues and that scientists can figure out how to overpower these tumors.

Making Progress

University of California San Francisco scientists have found a link between inflammation and pancreatic cancer.  A link has been found between molecules found in an inflamed pancreas and the early formation of pancreatic cancer.--What does this mean you ask?  This discovery may help scientists identify new ways to detect, monitor, and treat pancreatic cancer.
The UCSF team, led by Matthias Hebrok, PhD. discovered two molecular "signals" produced abundantly in the pancreas during inflammation--a protein named Stat3--helps to initiate the early stages of pancreatic cancer.  Another protein, called MMP7, appears to affect metastasis, or the spreading of the tumor.
In lab experiments, Hebrok and colleagues showed that blocking these proteins in mice shrunk the number of lesions that can lead to cancer and reduced the extent of cancer metastisis.
Their experiments also showed MMP7 may be a clinical indicator of the pancreatic cancer stage, possibly making it useful as a marker for more aggressive disease.

Hopefully, these scientists will continue making progress and help find a way to treat, detect, and monitor this terrible disease.