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This is a project led by Rebeca Sanz-Pamplona and Josep María Piulats, researchers at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL-Oncobell), the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and Ciberesp.
A project led by Rebeca Sanz-Pamplona and Josep María Piulats, researchers at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL-Oncobell), the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the CIBERESP, has shown common immune characteristics in metastasis of breast cancer. lung.
In the work, published in the 'Journal for Immunotheraphy of Cancer', 374 metastatic samples have been analyzed from the four secondary organs most likely to be invaded by disseminated tumor cells (brain, bones, liver and lung), and belonging to cancers originating in different primary locations.
"The bioinformatics analyzes carried out have refuted the 'seed and soil' hypothesis and revealed that metastatic tumors located in the lungs, regardless of the primary location of the cancer, share characteristics of inflammation and immune infiltration. Therefore, they could respond to the same treatment with immunotherapy", explained Sandra García-Mulero, CIBERESP researcher and first author of the work.
Furthermore, researchers have observed significant differences between the immune profiles of metastases in different organs. In the liver, metastasis tends to be very poorly immunogenic, that is, it barely activates the immune system. On the contrary, the results showed that metastasis to the lungs tends to be highly immunogenic and induces an inflammatory reaction.
One of the hypotheses that would explain the susceptibility of the lungs to metastasis would be that, to avoid a massive immune reaction, the lungs themselves could activate immunosuppressive mechanisms, and the tumors would take advantage of this situation to facilitate metastasis.
In the opinion of the researchers, when considering a therapy for this type of highly inflammatory metastatic tumors, treatment using blockers could be considered, which would allow the immune response of the lungs, favoring the destruction of cancer cells.
