Study finds the ultimate killer of small cell lung cancer!

Researchers from the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center have discovered an immuno-checkpoint inhibitor and targeted therapy that inhibits normal DA damage repair (DNA damage repair, DDR) that significantly inhibits the growth of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) in mice, suggesting a potential new approach to treating patients with this type of malignant cancer. The study, published recently in Cancer Discovery, showed that PARP inhibitors Orapani and other DDR inhibitors can quickly induce an immune response that makes SCLC cells that were previously insensitive to immunotherapy sensitive.
SCLC is one of the most malignant cancers, accounting for about 15 percent of all lung cancer patients, with 30,000 new cases each year in the United States, said study co-author Dr. Lauren Averett Byers, an associate professor of chest/head and neck oncology. The standard treatment for late-stage SCLC is chemotherapy, but recurrence is common, with patients living an average of only 12 months, but the recent combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy has become a new standard, yet only a small percentage of patients can benefit from the new combination therapy.
that although immunotherapy has upended our approach to lung cancer, we have found that small cell lung cancer cells can quickly effectively bypass the immune system, so patient response rates are low. Byers said. We also want to do more for our patients, and we think there is still a lot of room for improvement. The
byers has previously found that DDR path paths in SCLC are active and inhibiting these path paths ,such as PARP and CHK1 inhibitors, can be effective in treating animal SCLC models. In addition, tumors with higher levels of DNA damage respond more to immunotherapy.
so we predict that if we use PARP inhibitors or other drugs that can cause DNA damage in a combined way with immunotherapy, we may be able to make immunotherapy more responsive. We found that when we combined PARP or CHK1 inhibitors with immunotherapy, the tumors were significantly smaller and in some mice the tumors even disappeared altogether. "The combination of PARP inhibitors and immunotherapy caused the tumors in mice to completely disappear within a week or so, so no further analysis was possible, and the combined use of CHK1 inhibitors led to the complete disappearance of tumors in 60 percent of mice.
researchers found that DDR inhibitors activated the immune response in mice, increasing the number of immune cells in the tumor that kill tumor cells. This process is controlled by a path path called STING, which is usually responsible for detecting signals of virus or bacterial infection. In this study, the STING pathrapy could activate the immune system in response to DNA damage, eventually making SCLC cells more sensitive to immunotherapy.
I think the results of this study are really surprising because combination therapy significantly enhances the effectiveness of cancer. I think our findings will benefit our patients. Clinical
trials to test PARP inhibitors or immunotherapy for SCLC are under way. Byers and his colleagues hope to launch clinical trials by the end of this year to study the efficacy of the combination therapy in humans, and they hope it will have an effect on other cancer patients with increased DNA damage, such as breast and ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations. (Bio Valley)