There, the researchers discovered clear differences between the regressing and progressing tumors. Using a different strategy, the researchers looked at the tumors' gene expression profiles, which show how active each gene is in producing proteins. Neither of these tests showed any marked differences between the responding and nonresponding tumors. The patient's history and the unusual access the researchers had to the large number of tumors before and immediately after his death first facilitated two tests to compare responding to non-responding tumors: whole exome sequencing, which determines the genetic sequence for protein-coding regions of the tumor genome and assessment of immunologic markers, which examines a variety of immune cells and molecules associated with modulating immune responses within tumors. Samples from four of the patient's tumors were collected over a five-year period prior to his death the remaining 22 were removed during autopsy.ĭuring the patient's treatment, tumor surveillance with CT scans and clinical examinations had shown that some tumors were shrinking in response to immunotherapy, while others continued to grow. His physicians received permission to perform a research autopsy soon after his death. The patient received anti-PD1 therapy at Johns Hopkins for six months before his sudden death from a non-cancer-related cause, and had been treated for 15 months before that with a different checkpoint inhibitor, anti-CTLA-4.
#Laverna hahn charitable trust skin
In a bid to increase the success rate of immunotherapies by tracking down the reasons for these uneven responses, Topalian and colleagues from Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York examined 26 tumors from one 60-year-old patient with melanoma, a potentially lethal skin cancer that has a 40 percent response rate to anti-PD-1.
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