Some immune systems can beat cancer: Could this be turned into a cure?

Scientists are exploring a promising idea: could the way the body itself fights cancer be used to create a new treatment?

According to some studies, the answer may be yes, although the road to a functional cure is still long, it has reported. The New York Times.

It is known that most cancers grow, spread, and without treatment are deadly.

But in some rare cases, the cancer either goes away on its own or remains in the body without getting worse or causing symptoms. This contradicts what is commonly believed about cancer.

This is precisely what has intrigued Dr. Edward Patz, a renowned cancer researcher at Duke University, for years, who believes that these unusual cases may hold the key to new treatments.

After many years of research, his work has led to the development of an experimental drug, which has so far been tested only in a small number of lung cancer patients. The initial results are encouraging, although most experimental drugs fail when tested in larger studies.

However, this has not stopped Dr. Patzi, who founded the company Grid Therapeutics, in the hope that this drug will become a new form of cancer treatment.

Other researchers, who are not directly involved in this project, also express interest.

"We're still very, very early. But I like the idea," said Dr. Roy Herbst, a lung cancer expert and chief of medical oncology at Yale University.

Dr. David Barbie, chief of thoracic oncology at the Dana-Farber Institute, also finds the concept interesting, but warns that the road to strong evidence is long.

"At this stage, effectiveness is still just an observed association, not clear evidence," he said.

Dr. Patzi's research began decades ago, when he noticed that some cancers that look the same on scans behave very differently in reality: some are slow and harmless, while others are aggressive.

He and his team analyzed samples stored for 25 years from lung cancer patients, comparing those who had died quickly with those who had survived.

"We had tumor tissue samples, blood samples and clear data on the course of the disease," said Dr. Patz.

Initially, the researchers looked for genetic differences or specific proteins, but found nothing significant. Then, they focused on blood serum, and there they discovered something interesting: an antibody called GT103.

After analyzing hundreds of patients, Dr. Patz observed that the presence of this antibody was associated with a stagnation of lung cancer in the early stages.

GT103 appeared to help the immune system attack cancer cells, by blocking a “molecular shield” that cancer uses to hide from the body's defenses.

When this antibody is present, part of the immune system manages to destroy the cancer cells.

The next step was to produce large quantities of this antibody for use as a treatment.

Researchers at the Duke University Vaccine Institute helped produce it.

Animal tests showed positive results. Then the first phase of human trials began, focused solely on the drug's safety.

The study included 31 lung cancer patients in whom standard treatments had failed.

The tumors did not shrink, but in about a third of the patients, they stopped growing for a period of time.

"I used it on a patient who had gone through several lines of treatment without success. We didn't have much to offer him, but with this drug, his cancer stopped growing for nine or ten months," said Dr. George Simon.

The researchers then combined the antibody with pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug known as Keytruda.

The idea was to activate two different immune system mechanisms simultaneously.

"Our antibody kills the tumor cells, but maybe not all of them. With the other drug, we try to 'train' the immune system to deal with the rest," explained Dr. Patz.

The results were mixed. In some patients, the tumors stabilized, but later began to grow again. In some cases, the growth seen on scans was due to inflammation, not actual cancer growth.

"What we see in the images are not always cancer cells," said Dr. Patz.

However, there was also an extraordinary case.

One patient had a complete disappearance of the tumor. For two years, tests have shown no sign of the disease.

"He is no longer undergoing any treatment," said Dr. Hirva Mamdani.

The next step, according to the researchers, is a much larger study, with hundreds of patients and a comparison group.

"We need to study these results on a large scale," said Dr. Simon.