Researchers also showed existing drugs could be repurposed to boost the cancer-killing activity of these immune cells, opening new opportunities to strengthen current treatments and help more patients benefit from these therapies.
Finding a way to boost treatment responses for lung cancer
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is one of the world’s deadliest diseases, with a five-year survival rate of less than 7%. While immunotherapy has transformed outcomes for other cancers, only a rare subset of SCLC patients will experience long-term benefits from the treatment. One major reason is that these cancers are often invisible to the conventional immune cells that immunotherapy treatments rely on, making them difficult to detect and treat.