New tool helps identify lung cancer patients who will respond to immune therapies > Yale Cancer Center | Yale School of Medicine | Immunology and Biotherapies | Scoop.it
From medicine.yale.edu - February 7, 2015 3:10 AM
A new tool for predicting how #NSCLC patients might respond to #immunotherapy paper by Kurt Schalper et al @JNCI_Now http://t.co/QqWmYZUa67

 

A Yale-led team of researchers has developed a new assay, or investigative tool, to measure the anti-tumor immune activity in non-small cell lung cancer tumors that could lead to a more accurate determination of which patients will respond to immune therapy drugs. Findings from the study were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

 

The assay simultaneously measures subpopulations of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), a type of white blood cell that attacks tumors. The presence of high amounts of TILs in tumors is associated with better treatment outcomes. The new method differs from existing immune-measuring assays in that it is objective, quantitative, and reproducible, said the paper’s first author, Dr. Kurt Schalper, associate research scientist in Yale School of Medicine and director of the Translational Immuno-oncology Laboratory at Yale Cancer Center.


Via Krishan Maggon