Two is better than one when eliminating cancer recurrence

Scientists researching a way to eliminate cancer recurrence found that combining chemotherapy and immunotherapy can eliminate hidden dormant cancer cells, according to a study published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

Chemotherapy treatment kills most cancer cells, but it can cause two other types of dormant cells to become resistant to further chemotherapy, meaning they may eventually become active again. Researchers found that pairing chemotherapy with immunotherapy can destroy both active and dormant cancer cells.

To test their discovery, researchers started with delivering chemotherapy to breast cancer patients. Once the majority of cancer cells had been destroyed, the dormant cells could be measured by the presence of the molecule associated with cell division. The presence of this molecule revealed the cancer cells that remain dormant, which gave researchers a clue how much immunotherapy must be administered to the patient. This destruction of both the active cells by chemotherapy and dormant cells by immunotherapy could significantly cut possibility of cancer returning in such patients.

"Immunotherapy has become a paradigm shift in medical treatment of disease. Now, instead of our drugs targeting only diseased cells, we can target the immune system and provoke cells of the immune system to do the job for us," said E. John Wherry, PhD, Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. "This new study demonstrates the importance of this concept of exploiting the immune system in cancer to target residual disease that our cancer drugs miss."