A new study provides an explanation as to why cancer immunotherapy currently fails in many patients and offers a potential solution that could increase the efficacy of anticancer drugs. Currently, 70 to 85% of patients taking immunotherapy drugs fail to respond to them.
In the study conducted on laboratory mice, Kazukani Hayashi, PhD, and a team of cancer researchers at Cedars-Sinai, showed that combining the chemotherapy drug, Gemcitabine, with the anti-inflammatory drug, Celecoxib (Celebrex), allowed the cancer drug to trigger an immune response, thereby increasing its efficacy. Gemcitabine is commonly prescribed to treat several solid tumors, including bladder and pancreatic cancer.
