Science Sub-Journal: Beauty laser radiation is expected to enhance the anti-tumor response of immunosuppressants

FEBRUARY 21, 2021 /--- -- Using a beauty laser invented by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may improve the effectiveness of certain anti-tumor therapies and expand its use to more different forms of cancer, according to a new study.
important, this strategy was tested and validated in mice.
study was published in the February 17, 2021 issue of the Journal of Science Translational Medicine under the title "Epitope spreading towards wild-type melanocyte-lineage antigens rescues suboptimal immune checkpoint responses."
images from Science Translational Medicine, 2021, doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.abd8636.
immune checkpoint inhibitors are important drugs to boost the immune system's response to various cancers, but only some patients seem to benefit from them.
cancer cells in these patients tend to have mutations that allow them to be identified by the immune system as foreign, triggering an inflammatory response.
to expand the benefits of immunosuppressants for more patients, the researchers tested melanoma mice where immunogenic immunogenic immune checkpoint inhibitors did not work.
they found that exposing melanoma cells to ultraviolet radiation causes them to mutate more, making immune checkpoint inhibitors more effective in enhancing the immune response to melanoma.
a little surprisingly, this enhanced immune response includes an immune attack on the tumor's non-mutant protein, a process known as epitope spreading. Dr. David E. Fisher, co-author of the
paper and director of the Center for Dermatology research at Massachusetts General Hospital, explained, "Table diffusion can be important because many human cancers do not have a high number of mutations and respond badly to immunotherapy, so a treatment that safely targets non-mutant proteins can be valuable."
" the researchers then tried to find an alternative to the mutation-triggered response to UV radiation, because adding mutations to a patient's tumor may not be safe as a treatment strategy.
Fisher said, "We found that using a beauty laser developed by MGH, or fractional laser, to hit the tumor, it can trigger a local inflammation that simulates the presence of mutations, strongly enhancing immune attacks on non-mutant tumor proteins, thereby curing many mice of tumors that do not respond to immunotherapy."
" results suggest that the use of such laser methods, or other methods to optimize the immune response of non-mutant protein targets on tumors, may make immuno-checkpoint inhibitors effective for cancers that are currently incurable.
(Bioon.com) Reference: 1. Jennifer A. Lo et al. Epitope spreading toward wild-type melanocyte-lineage antigens rescues suboptimal immune checkpoint blockade responses. Science Translational Medicine, 2021, doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.abd8636.2.Cosmetic laser may boost effectiveness of certain anti-cancer therapies