(Press-News.org) A national research collaboration of senior researchers, including a researcher from Moffitt Cancer Center, has found that 20 to 25 percent of "heavily pre-treated" patients with a variety of cancers who enrolled in a clinical trial had "objective and durable" responses to a treatment with BMS-936558, an antibody that specifically blocks programmed cell death 1 (PD-1). PD-1 is a key immune "checkpoint" receptor expressed by activated immune cells (T-cells) and is involved in the suppression of immunity.
The clinical trial, designed to assess the anti-tumor activity and safety of the treatment, was conducted with the help of 296 patients with a variety of cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma and renal cell cancer, among others. Study results were published in a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine.
According to study co-author Scott J. Antonia, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Thoracic Oncology Program and co-chair of the Immunology Program at Moffitt, tumors can develop multiple resistance mechanisms to evade natural destruction by the body's immune system. Tumors may do this by exploiting a variety of biochemical pathways that lead to "immune checkpoints" where immune responses that might get through the checkpoints and otherwise help destroy tumor cells are, instead, terminated.
"There have been recent intensive efforts to develop immunotherapeutic approaches to treat cancer, including efforts to develop immune-checkpoint-pathway inhibitors," Antonia said. "A particular challenge in cancer immunotherapy has been to find the mechanism-based biomarkers that could be used to identify patients whose tumors are candidates for immune treatment."
For evidence that this approach is working, the study authors pointed to the recent success of the drug ipilimumab, an immune checkpoint pathway inhibitor that has been effective for many patients with advanced melanoma.
Their study results, Antonia said, suggested that tumors expressing the PD-1 ligand - PD-L1 (a ligand is binding molecule) - is an important candidate molecular marker. For example, in patients with PD-L1-positive tumors, the response to BMS-936558 was 36 percent, as opposed to no response in patients with PD-L1-negative tumors.
Among the 296 patient volunteers in whom responses could be evaluated, complete or partial responses resulted for those with non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma or renal cell cancer. The researchers concluded that the anti-PD-1 antibody was safe, effective and the responses were "durable."
INFORMATION:
The study was sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb, who provided the study drug and worked with the research to design, conduct and evaluate the study.
About Moffitt Cancer Center
Follow Moffitt on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MoffittCancerCenter
Follow Moffitt on Twitter: @MoffittNews
Follow Moffitt on YouTube: MoffittNews
Located in Tampa, Moffitt Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, which recognizes Moffitt's excellence in research and contributions to clinical trials, prevention and cancer control. Moffitt is also a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a prestigious alliance of the country's leading cancer centers, and is listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of "America's Best Hospitals" for cancer.
Media release by Florida Science Communications
END
An Indiana University team of researchers has conducted the most in-depth and diverse genetic analysis of the defense systems that trillions of micro-organisms in the human body use to fend off viruses. The work is among a collection of 16 research papers released today by the Human Microbiome Project Consortium, a National Institutes of Health-led effort to map the normal microbial make-up of healthy humans.
Led by IU Bloomington assistant professor of informatics and computing Yuzhen Ye, the team of bioinformaticists and biologists reconstructed arrays of clusters of ...
A new report published by the AFL-CIO has determined that workplace fatalities are on the rise, despite the troubled economy in which work hours have decreased and unemployment is higher than usual. The findings should inspire review of workplace hazards and every employer's responsibility to provide a safe workplace for employees.
"Death on the Job" Findings
The AFL-CIO's report "Death on the Job" found that 13 workers were killed on the job every day in 2010, totaling 4,690 deaths nationwide. This workplace accident statistic does not include ...
Analysis of 2012 Tennessee motor vehicle accident fatality data has law enforcement officials worried. Since the beginning of the year, more than 330 road deaths have occurred in Tennessee, which represents an increase of 13 percent as compared to the same time last year.
Law enforcement is not certain why fatality rates are so high this year, but many believe that an increase in speeding or drunken driving may be to blame. To help curb traffic deaths, state troopers have resorted to posting current fatality counts on state highways to catch the attention of drivers ...
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Unlike most whites, blacks and Hispanics tend to have neighbors from other racial groups who are disproportionately likely to be poor. This contributes importantly to the high poverty rates of the neighborhoods lived in by black and Hispanic families and to high poverty rates of schools attended by black and Hispanic children.
Lincoln Quillian, professor of sociology and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, analyzed data from the 2000 census and found that the disproportionate poverty of blacks' and Hispanics' ...
Many churches are missing opportunities to involve Christian women in philanthropy, with ministry leaders too often speaking "man to man" — despite the fact that women now control more than 51 percent of personal wealth nationally, according to a 2012 national survey.
While Christian women are far more generous than the average person, the report — "Directions in Women's Giving 2012" — shows that many donors feel that church and ministry leaders neglect the role women play in charitable giving, instead addressing only husbands. The report was commissioned by Women Doing ...
In its pursuit of the executives accountable for the financial meltdown of 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is pursuing more negligence cases. The Commission hopes that pursuing these types of cases will make it easier to hold executives accountable than if it focused on alternatives.
The Rationale
The SEC claims that building a negligence case is easier and less time-consuming than building a case for investment fraud. In a negligence case, the SEC only needs to provide evidence that an executive or team of executives failed to take action that ...
For astrophysicist Bill Craig and his team, NASA's NuSTAR will open up a whole new world. In fact, NuSTAR will allow them to observe a new class of objects in space, called extreme objects, which have never been seen.
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (or NuSTAR), is the first focusing, high energy X-ray NASA satellite that will open the hard X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. It is scheduled for launch today (June 13) from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
For Livermore, the predecessor to NuSTAR was a balloon-borne instrument known as ...
A better way to improve organizations using overlooked employee talent has taken a top award from a notable management group. Marguerite Schneider, an associate professor in NJIT School of Management, is the co-author of "Leadership a Complex Adaptive System: Insights from Positive Deviance." Curt Lindberg, of Complexity Partners, Bordentown, NJ, was her co-author.
The paper received the 2012 Best Paper Award from the Organization Development and Change Division of the Academy of Management. It will be presented in August at the organization's annual meeting in Boston ...
When it comes to bankruptcy, not all debts are equal; meaning that bankruptcy will treat different types of debt differently. Generally, two types of debt are considered during the bankruptcy proceeding: secured and unsecured debt.
Secured debt is any debt that uses a tangible piece of real or personal property as collateral for the loan (the property is tied to the debt). Examples of secured debt include mortgages, mechanics liens and car loans. Because this type of debt is "secured" by the object the loan is for, if you default on payments the lender can, ...
The state of New York is showing a bit of flexibility with Long Island Rail Road retirees who may have filed false disability claims, allegedly in order to increase their pension payouts. The U.S. Attorney representing the Southern District of New York has given retirees until July 6, 2012, to admit wrongdoing in order to receive amnesty from potential prosecution. Meanwhile, LIRR management has stated that anyone not opting for the deal and found to have made false disability claims may be disqualified from receiving any part of their pension.
An investigation began ...
