Scientists find immune cells within some tumors can combat cancer
Lurking deep inside some tumors are “factories” full of immune cells that help the body fight a rearguard action against cancer and are key to helping some patients recover, new research has shown.
In recent years, doctors have turned to a new treatment for cancer, immunotherapy, which works by leveraging the body’s immune system to fight tumors.
The technique has largely focused on white blood cells called T-cells, which are “trained” to recognize and attack cancer cells. But the innovative treatment only works well for around 20 percent of patients, and researchers have been trying to understand why some people respond better than others.
Three papers published on Thursday in the journal Nature point the way, identifying a key formation inside some tumors: tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS). These structures function like “factories or schools” for immune cells that help the body fight cancer, said Wolf H. Fridman, a professor emeritus of immunology at the Cordeliers Research Centre of the Paris Descartes University medical school, who helped lead one of the studies.
“The cells need to be educated in schools, which are the tertiary lymphoid structures,” where they effectively learn to recognize and attack cancer cells, Fridman told AFP.
Key to the findings is that T-cells are far from the only immune cells capable of taking the fight to cancer, with researchers finding the TLS were full of B-cells, a kind of immune cell that produces antibodies. “We have been T-cell addicts for 15 years in cancer,” Fridman said with a laugh.
“We analyzed these sarcomas to see what groups they had and what’s striking is that these B-cells appeared.”
Beth Helmink, a fellow at the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center who worked on a second study, said the research changed perceptions of the role of B-cells in immunotherapy. “We find that B-cells are not just innocent bystanders, but are themselves contributing in a meaningful way to the anti-tumor immune response,” she said.