The "reverse order" of lung cancer therapy can improve survival

with cancer surgery are mostly used after the tumor is removed. But a U.S. team of researchers has found in clinical trials that reversing the sequence and implementing immunotherapy before surgically removing tumors can help improve survival in some patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
Johns Hopkins University research team reported in the United States
on the 16th, clinical trials, non-small cell lung cancer patients were given two doses of "procedural cell death protein-1 (PD-1)" inhibitors weeks before surgery.
results showed that three-quarters of patients with non-small cell lung cancer survived and did not relapse 12 months after surgery, while the rate of non-recurrence at 18 months was 73%.
PD-1 inhibitor is a drug that activates the immune system to attack tumors. The researchers believe that immunotherapy, used when the tumor is not removed, can more effectively activate antigen-specific T-cells that produce an immune response to cancer cells, which can look throughout the patient's body for tiny metastasis of the tumor to prevent it from relapsing after surgery.
study also found that the immune systems of these lung cancer patients may also have eliminated some of the cancer cells that swim in the blood, which can later cause cancer recurrence and metastasis.
, an assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University and lead researcher on the study, said the initial results of this innovative cancer treatment are encouraging and believe it could lead researchers to conduct clinical trials of complementary therapies for a variety of cancers. (Source: Xinhua News Agency Zhou Zhou)