Medical Bulletin 17/December/2022

The clinical trial in adolescents and adults found that a drug that inhibits the immune system in patients who have graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is safer than steroids, the current standard treatment. GvHD is a side effect seen in patients who have received a bone marrow transplant from a donor to treat blood cancers.

Researchers at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai have identified a treatment that is effective and safer than the standard of care for a serious, and sometimes fatal, side effect of bone marrow transplant in cancer patients. Results from a phase 2 clinical trial were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in December.

Reference:

John Levine et al, THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Explanation to why immunotherapies don't work on hardest-to-treat breast cancers

The process of surviving chemotherapy triggers a program of immune checkpoints that shield breast cancer cells from different lines of attack by the immune system. It creates a "whack-a-mole" problem for immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors that may kill tumor cells expressing one checkpoint but not others that have multiple checkpoints, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Cancer.

Thanks to advances in cancer therapies, most forms of breast cancer are highly treatable, especially when caught early.

Reference:

Breast cancer cells survive chemotherapy by activating targetable immune-modulatory programs characterized by PD-L1 or CD80,Nature Cancer,DOI: 10.1038/s43018-022-00466

Patients with heart failure with improved ejection fraction benefit from the SGLT2 inhibitor dapagliflozin: Study

Reduced ejection fraction heart failure develops when the left ventricle's muscle does not pump as well as it should. A 40% or lower ejection fraction is present. It occurs when the blood being pushed out of the heart is less than the body requires.

With modern therapies for heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), some patients can improve their cardiac function during treatment. But despite this improvement in the ability of their hearts to pump, these patients with so-called heart failure with improved ejection fraction (HFimpEF) remain at high risk for adverse outcomes.

Reference:

Vardeny O. "Dapagliflozin in heart failure with improved ejection fraction: a prespecified analysis of the DELIVER trial" Nature Medicine DOI: 10.1038/s41591-022-02102-9

Multiple sclerosis condition may be affected by gut health and diet

MS is a degenerative condition in which the body's immune system attacks the protective covering of nerves in the brain, spinal cord and eyes. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, it affects nearly 1 million adults in the United States.

Several previous studies have differentiated the microbiomes of MS patients and healthy subjects, but, Ito said, they all noted different abnormalities, so it was impossible to tell what change, if any, was driving disease progression.

Reference:

Kouichi Ito et al,Fecal Lcn-2 level is a sensitive biological indicator for gut dysbiosis and intestinal inflammation in multiple sclerosis,Frontiers in Immunology,

DOI 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1015372Reference: