Alex Trelinski
RESEARCHERS at Navarra’s Cima University believe that a new combination of immunotherapy treatment could be used to fight liver cancer, and are testing different values on mice.
Liver cancer is one of the faster growing cancer types these days.
It begins in the cells of the liver and there are several types of which the most common type is hepatocellular carcinoma which starts in the main type of liver cell known as hepatocyte.
Cancer also spreads to the liver from areas like the colon, breast, and lungs and the quicker it is detected, then the survival rate get higher.
Symptoms include loss of appetite or losing weight when you’re not trying to; increased tiredness; a lump on the right side of the stomach; and the skin or whites of the eyes turning yellow.
Survival rates of patients with liver cancer have been increasing substantially in recent years with the Cima research team trying to discover biomarkers that will lead to a positive response to treatment.
Study director, Dr. Ignacio Melero said: “One of the main objectives in the research of this disease is to have reliable and clinically useful animal models to study new therapies.”
“We are using mice with a gene transfer from the liver where we have been able to test new immunotherapy combinations,” he added.
Experiments have shown that immunotherapies currently applied to patients have a partial effect in mice.
But the efficacy increases with combinations of other agents such as anti-CD137 antibodies, which give doctors cause for optimism for finding the right mixture to offer even better treatment for liver cancer in humans.
Further research will be done before moving onto clinical trials with patients.
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