3 ms·

Is there any indication that these treatments can help is prevention or return of metastatic rumors? (As someone going through treatment for stage iv colon can

Is there any indication that these treatments can help is prevention or return of metastatic rumors? (As someone going through treatment for stage iv colon cancer with liver metastasis. The erbitux has done wonders in shrinking the tumors, but there are serious skin toxicity issues that may require me to change regimes.)

BBoingo 12y ago
Depends on how much the tumor mutates down the line. Most immunologic therapies and actions are based on specific markers antibodies can latch on to to mark cancer cells for destruction. With Cetusimab (generic name) you are already on a sort of immunologic treatment. It's a chimeric monoclonal antibody doing its antibody thing. Just taking a wild stab out to left field, the skin component of your reaction might be related to some sort of allergic-ish reaction to the mouse component of the cetusimab.
dnautics 12y ago
OK. I am not a doctor (just a PhD biochemistry) I think that currently with these treatments complete remission is luck of the draw. Although many of these treatments (trastuzumab, cetuximab) were designed to block a growth factor from signalling on the cancer, what they ALSO seem to do is to recruit the immune system to the cancer and basically paint the cancer with a giant target. Now, there is basically a competititon here; is your immune system powerful enough to kill the cancers painted by the antibodies faster than the cancer can adapt (usually by short-circuiting the growth signal). This sounds hokey, but for patients on these class of antibodies (ADCCs "antibody-directed, cell-mediated cytotoxicity"), I'd say it's important to keep a positive attitude, eliminate stress from one's life, and other things that strengthen the immune system. Unfortunately there are a lot of chemotherapeutics which are coadministered with these antibodies that throw a wrench into the immune system, as does radiation, etc. As for the future, I think that there are some sneaky tricks that we can do to make ADCC drugs more powerful. Right now there is actually batch-to-batch variation in the power of these drugs, again going back to the 'luck of the draw'. I also see some potential for ADC ("antibody-drug conjugate", not to be confused with ADCC) as well, this is attaching a warhead to an antibody and just directly killing the cells, although I think the ADCs that are being designed are not potent enough. But that is another story. Finally, there will be a class of general chemotherapeutics that don't touch the immune system (I work on one through my nonprofit, there is one in Phase III - SJG-136) which I think will make for a nice 'sweeper' system to clean up any cells that have snuck out of whatever the antibody target is. In short: I see a future where ADCCs are combined with ADCs and next-generation chemotherapeutics. The other big challenge is that it's kind of very expensive to make antibody drugs. I think there are clever ways of bringing the cost down, and I might be working on that too.

BBoingo 12y ago

Depends on how much the tumor mutates down the line. Most immunologic therapies and actions are based on specific markers antibodies can latch on to to mark cancer cells for destruction. With Cetusimab (generic name) you are already on a sort of immunologic treatment. It's a chimeric monoclonal antibody doing its antibody thing. Just taking a wild stab out to left field, the skin component of your reaction might be related to some sort of allergic-ish reaction to the mouse component of the cetusimab.

dnautics 12y ago

OK. I am not a doctor (just a PhD biochemistry) I think that currently with these treatments complete remission is luck of the draw. Although many of these treatments (trastuzumab, cetuximab) were designed to block a growth factor from signalling on the cancer, what they ALSO seem to do is to recruit the immune system to the cancer and basically paint the cancer with a giant target. Now, there is basically a competititon here; is your immune system powerful enough to kill the cancers painted by the antibodies faster than the cancer can adapt (usually by short-circuiting the growth signal). This sounds hokey, but for patients on these class of antibodies (ADCCs "antibody-directed, cell-mediated cytotoxicity"), I'd say it's important to keep a positive attitude, eliminate stress from one's life, and other things that strengthen the immune system. Unfortunately there are a lot of chemotherapeutics which are coadministered with these antibodies that throw a wrench into the immune system, as does radiation, etc. As for the future, I think that there are some sneaky tricks that we can do to make ADCC drugs more powerful. Right now there is actually batch-to-batch variation in the power of these drugs, again going back to the 'luck of the draw'. I also see some potential for ADC ("antibody-drug conjugate", not to be confused with ADCC) as well, this is attaching a warhead to an antibody and just directly killing the cells, although I think the ADCs that are being designed are not potent enough. But that is another story. Finally, there will be a class of general chemotherapeutics that don't touch the immune system (I work on one through my nonprofit, there is one in Phase III - SJG-136) which I think will make for a nice 'sweeper' system to clean up any cells that have snuck out of whatever the antibody target is. In short: I see a future where ADCCs are combined with ADCs and next-generation chemotherapeutics. The other big challenge is that it's kind of very expensive to make antibody drugs. I think there are clever ways of bringing the cost down, and I might be working on that too.