It’s possible to prod immune cells to attack and kill pancreatic cancer cells, according to a report from scientists at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Their findings challenge the commonly held view that pancreatic cancer does not elicit an immune system response that is robust enough for immunotherapy to be effective.
“The failures seen in clinical trials with pancreatic cancer have been interpreted to indicate there was a dearth of reactive immune cells — T cells — within the tumor,” said lead author Yongwoo David Seo, a UW Medicine research fellow and surgical resident. “The thinking has been that pancreatic cancer is just not an immunologically ‘hot’ tumor.”
