Melanoma is, sadly, a cancer that is on the rise. The number of Americans diagnosed annually has increased by over 30 percent in the past decade. However, recent advances in science may give hope to patients with melanoma and their families. In April, CRI CLIP Investigator Nir Hacohen, Ph.D.
Credit: UPMC
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 4, 2021 - Researchers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) demonstrate that changing the gut microbiome can transform patients with advanced melanoma who never responded to immunotherapy which has a failure rate of 40% for this type of cancer into patients who do.
The results of this proof-of-principle phase II clinical trial were published online today in Science. In this study, a team of researchers from UPMC Hillman administered fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) and anti-PD-1 immunotherapy to melanoma patients who had failed all available therapies, including anti-PD-1, and then tracked clinical and immunological outcomes. Collaborators at NCI analyzed microbiome samples from these patients to understand why FMT seems to boost their response to immunotherapy.