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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Scientists have uncovered cancer-fighting cells that may improve a melanoma patients chance of becoming cancer-free.
Adoptive immunotherapy is a treatment option for patients with late-stage melanoma. It involves removing natural cancer-fighting T cells from a tumor and placing them in culture dishes to multiply. The T cells are then injected back into the patient to fight the tumor. Half of those treated with the therapy see their cancer go away, and many survive for decades without relapse.
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Researchers in France looked at 30 stage III melanoma patients who received adoptive immunotherapy between 1994 and 1998. In patients who survived tumor-free for more than a decade, they found T cells with the ability to recognize a new protein they named meloe-1. The protein is often expressed in melanoma cells, but not in normal skin cells or other types of cancer. Five of the nine patients who remained relapse-free had the meloe-1 T cells, while none of the 21 patients who relapsed did.
Researchers say by increasing the numbers of meloe-1 T cells cultured in adoptive immunotherapy, patients may have a greater chance of relapse-free survival.
SOURCE: Journal of Experimental Medicine, published online October 20, 2008
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