NEW ORLEANS — New immunotherapy drugs are showing significant and extended effectiveness against a broadening range of cancers, including rare and intractable tumors often caused by viruses. Researchers say these advances suggest the treatment approach is poised to become a critical part of the nation’s anti-cancer strategy.
Scientists reported Tuesday that the medications, which marshal the body’s own immune defenses, are now proving effective against difficult-to-treat head and neck cancer and an extremely lethal skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma. Both can be caused by viruses as well as DNA mutations, and the drugs help the immune system to recognize the virus-associated cancer and attack it.
Since pathogens are responsible for more than 20 percent of all cancers, “these results have implications that go far beyond a rare cancer” like Merkel cell carcinoma, said Paul Ngheim, an investigator with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle who led that study.
The new data, plus research released Sunday that showed sharply higher survival rates among advanced-melanoma patients who received immunotherapy, prompted growing, albeit guarded, optimism among researchers who attended the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting here. In addition to melanoma, the infusion drugs already have been approved for use against lung and kidney cancers.