Immunotherapy New healing approaches of cancer therapy

Immunotherapy Focus of the European Cancer Congress
At the European Cancer Congress ECC in Vienna, which begins today, the novel treatment method of immunotherapy is a key topic. The possibilities of cancer therapy will improve considerably on their basis, according to the experts.

The novel forms of immunotherapy offer oncologists' promising approaches to treat many cancers. "Immunotherapy will completely change the landscape of cancer therapy", said the Vienna oncologist and local organizer of the upcoming congress, Christoph Zielinski (Comprehensive Cancer Center MedUni Vienna and AKH) in a press release of MedUni Vienna. In total, around 20,000 specialists are expected to attend the congress. The absolute hit topic after the so-called targeted therapy of oncological diseases is the new immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy opens up new possibilities in the treatment of cancer. (Image: Mediteraneo / fotolia.com)

Improved treatment options in cancer therapy
According to the MedUni Vienna, target-oriented cancer therapy based on the molecular biological and genetic analysis of tumors has significantly improved the treatment options for some malignant diseases in recent years. However, the effect of the drugs is so far limited and, moreover, the effect of the drugs in advanced tumors is relatively short, because resistance develops. "Over the past few years, we have begun to understand how we can intervene in some cancers with drugs that specifically target molecular biology-identified goals," explains Christoph Zielinski. However, this does not always work.

Immune response of the organism used for therapy
According to a report by the MedUni Vienna, oncologists worldwide have achieved a new quality in the field of drug cancer therapy since 2012 and 2013: "The so-called immunotherapy, which apparently succeeds for the first time in helping the body's own immune system to recognize the malignant cells and the resulting The drugs are currently mostly targeted as "monoclonal antibodies against PD1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 surface features of cells that prevent the immune cells from attacking the malignant cells in the vicinity of the tumor," reports MedUni Vienna continues. The new immunotherapeutics prevent by the occupation of PD-1 or PD-L1, the shutdown signal for the attack of immune cells. Two PD-1 inhibitors include the antibodies nivolumab and pembrolizumab, which are already used in patients with melanoma and are currently being tested in clinical trials for the treatment of kidney and lung cancer.

Successes in cancer therapy
Already with the drugs of "targeted therapy" better treatment results than with chemotherapy were achieved and now could be achieved with the immunotherapeutics in some cases even significantly better results. According to the MedUni in January 2015, scientists from the French Cancer Research Center Gustave Roussy have published a study with 418 melanoma patients in an increase in the one-year survival rate from 42.1 to 72.9 percent compared to treatment with the chemotherapeutic Dacarbazine Use of nivolumab has been achieved. Also, the time to disease progression increased from 2.2 to 5.1 months, and the response rate increased from 13.9 to 40 percent.

Massive increase in cancer
In addition, health policy-relevant studies will also be discussed at the congress in Vienna, which continue to show wide differences in the quality of care for cancer patients in Europe. This applies to the possibilities of diagnosing malignant diseases as well as access to modern therapies. Internationally, the world population growth and demographic trends are forecasting a strong increase in the number of cancers over the next few years. The experts estimate the number of new cancers in the world in 2030 at 20.3 million, compared to 12.7 million cases in 2008. In addition, the year 2030 about 13 million cancer deaths are predicted, with 7.6 million deaths a year 2008. (fp)