Experts Investigate Why Immunotherapy Does Not Work For Everyone

Immunotherapy is a powerful way to treat cancer patients, but until now it has been difficult to predict why some patients or cancer types do not benefit from this treatment. By examining the immunological environment of various cancers and comparing it with patient data, researchers were able to identify some crucial T-cell markers that predict response to immunotherapy. For some cancers, immunotherapy can be safely integrated into standard treatment, but for others further research is needed to either modify the immunological environment through an anti-cancer vaccine or develop new types of immunotherapy that target tumors via a different method.

Cancer is a common disease and one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Despite the development of new and effective therapies, it remains important to investigate what will best benefit patients. By using biomarkers, oncologists can create a patient-specific profile and tailor treatment accordingly. An international group of researchers led by Professor Abhishek D. Garg of KU Leuven studied the immunological environment of five different tumor types in search of biomarkers that predict how well a patient will respond to immunotherapy.

This study is already a big step forward in defining the right biomarkers so that we can predict how a patient or cancer type will respond to the currently available immunotherapy.

Professor Abhishek D. Garg

Is immunotherapy for everyone?
Immunotherapy is still a relatively new therapy, but it has already proven to be particularly powerful in combating cancer cells for some cancer patients. The big advantage is that the patient’s own immune system is used, so that the immune system can build up a ‘memory’ against cancer cells and thus provide long-term protection. In general, immunotherapy seems to be a good treatment option for various cancer patients, but it does not seem to help everyone. Although until now we didn’t know exactly why.


“It can be dangerous to view immunotherapy as a one-size-fits-all treatment for all cancer patients,” said Professor Abhishek Garg of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “Pre-selection of patients is necessary to avoid serious side effects due to inappropriate immunotherapy. Moreover, valuable time is lost to start a more effective treatment. That is why biomarkers are needed on the basis of which we can predict whether immunotherapy is suitable for that specific patient or cancer.”

In this study, researchers compared the immunological environment of different tumors and were able to distinguish two types. The immunological environment of the first type (including melanoma, bladder cancer and lung cancer) contained typical, known cells that support immunotherapy. Patients in this group generally showed good results after treatment with immunotherapy. In the second group (including glioblastoma (brain tumour) and ovarian cancer) this was not the case and there were indications that the attack against cancer cells was just being suppressed. By comparing the different immunological environments with patient data, the researchers were able to identify biomarkers on T cells that could help predict the success or failure of immune therapy.

Implementation in standard therapy
Current immunotherapy is already being used for the treatment of melanoma, lung cancer and bladder cancer, among others. However, this research shows that other cancer types, such as ovarian cancer and glioblastoma, do not benefit from this and either need a different type of immunotherapy. Either could be helped by an anti-cancer vaccine that can improve the condition of the T cells in the vicinity of the tumor so that they do respond to current immunotherapy.

“Further research is needed to explore these avenues and see how we could combine an anti-cancer vaccine with immune or chemotherapy,” concludes Professor Garg. “This study is already a big step forward in defining the right biomarkers so that we can predict how a patient or cancer type will respond to currently available immunotherapy. We will continue to work closely with oncologists from UZ Leuven to start clinical studies and to implement this new generation of biomarkers in the hospital’s daily practice.”