CTLA 4 News and Research

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Study illustrates how the use of whole exome sequencing can better predict treatment response

Immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, have transformed the treatment of advanced stage cancers.

8 Jul 2022

Lung cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors can be safely vaccinated against COVID-19, study says

Cancer patients have received priority status to receive COVID-19 vaccinations but there is limited data regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccines for patients treated for lung cancer with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

22 Jun 2022

How specific comorbidities impact severity of COVID-19

Researchers identify the association between severe COVID-19 and specific comorbidities.

20 Jun 2022

Targeting interleukin-6 could help reduce immune-related adverse events from immunotherapy

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have identified a novel strategy to reduce immune-related adverse events from immunotherapy treatment by targeting the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6).

9 May 2022

Discovery provides critical clues to why many immunotherapies trigger dangerous side effects

It's not often that a failed clinical trial leads to a scientific breakthrough. When patients in the UK started showing adverse side effects during a cancer immunotherapy trial, researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and University of Liverpool went back through the data and worked with patient samples to see what went wrong.

5 May 2022

New study pinpoints how immune checkpoint protein LAG3 modulates T cell activity

Fighting cancer and chronic disease is tiring work for the immune system. When T cells are engaged in this kind of lengthy battle, they can become exhausted, or unable to function properly.

18 Apr 2022

Study finds better immunotherapy response in lung cancer patients with genetic variant linked to autoimmune disease

A variant of the CTLA-4 gene associated with autoimmune disease was found to be more frequent in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who experienced an exceptionally high response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy and higher immune-related side effects than in a comparable cohort of lung cancer patients and healthy individuals, according to data presented during the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13.

10 Apr 2022

Combination immunotherapy reverses resistance to PD-1 inhibitors in patients with advanced melanoma

Patients with advanced melanoma whose cancer does not respond to treatment with widely used immunotherapy drugs known as PD-1 inhibitors are often switched to treatment with a second type of immunotherapy drug – a CTLA-4 inhibitor such as the drug ipilimumab.

8 Apr 2022

FDA approves new treatment for patients with metastatic melanoma based on Johns Hopkins research

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a novel therapy for patients with metastatic or inoperable melanoma, an aggressive type of skin cancer.

23 Mar 2022

Study explores signature gut microbiome connection with immune checkpoint inhibitor response in advanced melanomas

Researchers from different countries performed a meta-analysis of real-world cross-cohorts and provided an association of the gut microbiome with immune checkpoint inhibitors response in patients with advanced melanomas.

2 Mar 2022

New approach to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of liver cancer immunotherapy

In recent years, tumor immunotherapy has emerged as a highly promising and much-touted oncological approach.

7 Dec 2021

Study shows difference in outcomes for women treated with checkpoint inhibitors for melanoma

A class of cancer immunotherapy called checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized cancer treatment. It's a new way to attack the disease by unleashing the immune system.

2 Dec 2021

HSS study provides insight into real-world medication use for treatment of psoriatic arthritis

Despite clear directives outlined in the updated guidelines published by the American College of Rheumatology/National Psoriasis Foundation (ACR/NPF) in 2018, there is limited data regarding medication use in real-world clinical practice and patient medication preferences for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

9 Nov 2021

Study opens a window for new therapeutic approaches to ovarian cancer

A Ludwig Cancer Research study has uncovered a cellular interaction that is essential to the ability of the immune system's cytotoxic T lymphocytes to destroy ovarian tumors and shown that its engagement could help determine the efficacy of checkpoint blockade immunotherapy in a variety of cancers.

6 Nov 2021

UAB researchers show how to identify non-responding tumors and improve immunotherapy response

Immunotherapy using checkpoint inhibitors can work well to treat cancer, but only a minority of patients respond to therapy.

28 Oct 2021

Study findings could lead to novel ways to overcome tumor resistance to immunotherapies

Cancer-fighting immune cells in patients with lung cancer whose tumors do not respond to immunotherapies appear to be running on a different "program" that makes them less effective than immune cells in patients whose cancers respond to these immune treatments, suggests a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

22 Sep 2021

MD Anderson and SNIPR BIOME join forces to advance new CRISPR-based microbiome therapeutics

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and SNIPR BIOME today announced a strategic collaboration to advance new CRISPR-based microbiome therapeutics to reduce immune-related adverse events (irAE) in patients being treated with combined immune checkpoint inhibitors.

13 Sep 2021

'Cold' tumors can be turned 'hot' with extremely low doses of radiation, study shows

A Ludwig Cancer Research study conducted in both mice and a small group of patients with advanced cancers has shown that so-called “cold” tumors that are nearly devoid of immune cells—and therefore unresponsive to immunotherapy—can be turned “hot” with extremely low doses of radiation and the rational use of existing therapies.

9 Sep 2021

Cellular program could turn T cells into effective cancer killers