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Cancer

New Combination Therapy Shows Promise for Cancer


— January 22, 2025

A new combination therapy effectively targets local and distant cancer tumors, showing promise.


A recent study led by Maria Sibilia and her team at the Medical University of Vienna is looking into a promising new approach to treat cancer. The therapy combines two methods: a whole-body treatment using a hormone called interferon-I, and a local treatment applied directly to the tumor using a drug called Imiquimod. This combination has shown to be effective in treating tumors that are easy to reach, such as those found in skin cancers like melanoma, as well as in breast cancer. The therapy works by both killing tumor cells at the treatment site and activating the body’s immune system to fight cancer in other areas, like distant metastases. These findings, published in the scientific journal Nature Cancer, offer hope for more effective treatments for cancers that are close to the surface, like melanoma and breast cancer.

Over the past few years, immunotherapy has made significant strides in cancer treatment, with many patients seeing improvements or even cures. However, for some individuals, these treatments still don’t work well enough. To find a better option, Sibilia and her team tested a combination therapy on mice with melanoma and breast cancer. These types of cancers were chosen because they are accessible for local treatment but also have a tendency to spread to other parts of the body.

Immunotherapy works by using the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. In this case, Imiquimod helps activate certain immune cells that play a key role in attacking cancer cells. It works by stimulating these cells to produce interferon-I, which then boosts the immune response. This not only helps to target the tumor itself but also prevents the cancer from spreading to other areas of the body by reducing the formation of new blood vessels that tumors need to grow. The combination therapy used in this study not only attacked the primary tumors but also had a positive effect on preventing new metastases from forming, which could otherwise lead to a relapse of the cancer. The combination also made the tumors more responsive to other forms of treatment, such as checkpoint inhibitors, which are used to further strengthen the immune response against cancer.

New Combination Therapy Shows Promise for Cancer
Photo by Tara Winstead from Pexels

The results of this study suggest that this new combination therapy might expand the options available for patients with cancers that are easy to treat locally, like melanoma and breast cancer. The combination works by causing cancer cells to die at the treatment site and also helps the immune system target any cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.

Sibilia is hopeful that this combination approach can improve outcomes for patients who have not responded well to existing therapies. She believes that since interferon is already known to be effective in cancer treatment, and since the immune system can be activated in a similar way in humans as in the study models, the treatment might show promising results in people as well. The researchers are excited to continue developing this strategy to help those who still struggle to find effective treatments.

Martina Sanlorenzo, a dermatology expert involved in the study, also shares this optimism. She emphasizes that the combination therapy’s potential could offer patients a new option, especially for cancers that are accessible and prone to spreading. The next steps for the researchers are to further test the treatment in clinical settings to see how well it works in patients and whether it can be used as a standard option in cancer care.

Sources:

Researchers investigate a new combination therapy against cancer

Systemic IFN-I combined with topical TLR7/8 agonists promotes distant tumor suppression by c-Jun-dependent IL-12 expression in dendritic cells

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