Inflammation Induces Melanoma’s ‘Invisibility’ to T-cell Immunotherapy

(ChemotherapyAdvisor) – Inflammation can trigger reversible losses of antigens from melanoma cell surfaces, cloaking tumors from T-cell detection, report authors of a study published in the journal Nature. The finding might help explain melanoma resistance and relapse after initially-effective immunotherapy, the authors reported.

“Adaptive cell transfer therapies (ACTs) using cytotoxic T-cells that target melanocytic antigens can achieve remissions in patients with metastatic melanomas, but tumors frequently relapse,” wrote Thomas Tüting, MD, Director of the Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology at the Bonn University in Germany. “Our results demonstrate that the phenotypic plasticity of melanoma cells in an inflammatory microenvironment contributes to tumor relapse after initially successful T-cell immunotherapy.” Read More…