SCIENTISTS believe they have discovered a new type of immune therapy to tackle untreatable cancers.
They managed to shrink a patient’s ovarian tumour using a type of antibody not yet tested in human cancer treatment.
GettyThe treatment sends antibodies to latch on to cancer cells and kill them (Stock image of cancer cells)[/caption]
It is called an IgE antibody and is an immune system protein made naturally in the body to fight off parasites like worms.
Immunotherapies already exist for cancer but use a different type of antibody called IgG.
Lead author of the study and cancer doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London, Professor James Spicer, said: “IgE is a completely new form of antibody therapy which has shown great promise in this Phase I trial.
“Our findings show that the drug was well tolerated in patients and shrunk a cancerous tumour in a patient with ovarian cancer.
“The results pave the way to development of an entirely new class of anti-cancer drug for people with chemotherapy-resistant cancers.”
Patients are injected with super-specific antibodies that latch onto cancer cells and help the person’s immune system to destroy them.
Years of larger and longer studies will be required before the science can be made into a treatment.
Co-author Professor Sophia Karagiannis, from King’s College London, said: “Immunotherapy has shown enormous potential but there are still people with cancer who do not respond to conventional therapy.
“This trial builds on our previous work suggesting that IgE could be an effective treatment.”
The study was partly funded by Cancer Research UK.
Dr Nigel Blackburn from the charity said: “We hope that through further trials, we will see it open up an entirely new treatment option for patients.”