Successfully enhancing survival rate by using "immunotherapy" for lung cancer patients in combination with conventional chemotherapy

Regarding treatment of "lung cancer" with a high incidence of cancer among cancer, in addition to conventional chemotherapy, "ImmunotherapyDramatic achievements are appearing by using together. Researchers recommend introducing immunotherapy as soon as possible for the treatment of lung cancer.

Pembrolizumab plus Chemotherapy in Metastatic Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer | NEJM
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1801005

Lung Cancer Patients Live Longer With Immune Therapy - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/health/lung-cancer-immunotherapy.html

Besides "surgical operation", "radiation therapy" and "chemotherapy" using anticancer drugs are used for the treatment of cancer. In addition to these techniques, in recent years, using "immune function" to counter cancer cells "Immunotherapy"Attracting attention.

Meanwhile, at the State University of New York Langone HealthLina GandyDr. et al.'s research group announced in the scientific journal New England Journal of Medicine that immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy for lung cancer patients has succeeded in dramatically increasing the survival rate.

In the study, we treated chemotherapy with immunotherapy for 616 advanced lung cancer patients from the age of 34 to the age of 84 treated in medical centers in 16 countries around the world. Approximately two-thirds of the subjects received immunotherapy in addition to chemotherapy, and the remaining third of the patients received chemotherapy and placebo (placebo).

For immunotherapy, checkpoint inhibitors called Merck's pembrolizumab and Keytruda were adopted. Cancer cells are known to suppress immune function in order to avoid attack from immunity, but checkpoint inhibitors act as checkpoints to suppress cytotoxic T cells (CLT) by cancer cells By interfering with CLT, it is a drug to make cancer cells attack. It is an immunotherapy adopted in the experiment that a checkpoint inhibitor tries to exert the original attack capability of immunity against cancer cells.


A follow-up of 10 months and a half confirmed that the mortality rate of subjects who added immunotherapy was halved. The median survival time of subjects who did not use immunotherapy was found to be 11.3 months, but the survival rate of subjects with immunotherapy combined was 69.2% at 12 months, which is higher than that of patients group using chemotherapy alone A much higher survival rate has been confirmed, and a high effect obtained by using immunotherapy in addition to chemotherapy has been confirmed.

Dr. Gandi, who achieved remarkable results by using immunotherapy, said, "I am amazed at the great effects found in earlier analyzes, which gave better results than any treatment that we have been doing for years It seems that it shows the possibility of altering the manner of lung cancer treatment in full. "


Dr. Roy Harvest of Yale Cancer Center who is not involved in the study on the reason why cancer cells could be killed by combining chemotherapy and immunotherapy said, "Cancer cells are like hidden protein bags If the contents are exposed, you can attack the immune system.The chemotherapy may kill some of the cancer cells "may have opened the bag", said chemotherapy immunity We point out the possibility that some immune cells that had prevented the system from attacking cancer cells were killed.

Dr. Harvest, who has been studying lung cancer treatment for 25 years, believes that this combination of immunotherapy method will cause an unprecedented paradigm shift, "There is a limit to chemotherapy, if you want long-term survival, Immunotherapy should be applied as soon as possible ". However, in this study, side effect of immunotherapy is also known, such as confirmed that administering immunotherapy adversely affected kidney function, such as the existence of side effects due to immunotherapy is also known, and the use of immunotherapy such as exploration of approach with few side effects In addition, some research is required.

·bonus
Ono drug announced that it was confirmed that the effect of suppressing the death risk and disease progression in lung cancer treatment compared to existing chemotherapy was confirmed by using "Checkpoint inhibitor drug" Opivibo "and" Yaboi "together.

Effect on combined use of Onionbo Ono Pharmaceuticals, Momentum for Lung Cancer Treatment: Nihon Keizai Shimbun
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO29466570X10C18A4EAF000/

Together with the announcement of State University of New York, the effect of immunotherapy on lung cancer treatment seems to attract more and more attention.