Current developments in tumour immunotherapy for animals
Cancer is statistically one of the largest killers in the UK, (World Health Organisation 2018). Doctors and scientists from all over the world are constantly researching and developing ways in which cancer can be treated in humans, and these medical developments can also be used in the development of veterinary medicine to help animals with the same or similar health problems. Treatment enhancements like this will be hugely beneficial in the animal health industry, as currently there are still very limited cancer treatment options for animals (Cancer Veterinary Centres, 2018). This piece of writing focuses on a significant development currently being made in veterinary medicine, which involves huge advances in cancer immunotherapy treatments.
What is immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy uses parts of the animal’s own immune system to fight a variety of different diseases, one of which can be cancer. At the moment, there are two main types of immunotherapy that can be used for the treatment of cancer in dogs. These include vaccinations against cancer, as well as the use of monoclonal antibodies (Cancer Veterinary Centers, 2018). Monoclonal antibodies are antibodies that have specifically been designed by researchers or scientists to target a certain antigen. These are then replicated in laboratories and used for the treatment of some types of cancer (Biozone AQA Biology, 2015).
History of immunotherapy
Without the history of research into immunotherapy, scientists would not be able to undertake the research that they are conducting at this current time. The first ever cancer vaccine study was published in 1959, by John and Ruth Graham, who were husband and wife researchers (William K. Decker et al). The couple’s work was mainly unnoticed, however the generation of the Graham vaccine did instigate the origination of the tumor-specific antibody. Just under 10 years later (1967), Jacques Miller published an article on the discovery of the role of the cellular immune response in adaptive immunity – this was the true stem of all future and now current developments in immunotherapy: “There isn’t a single advance in vaccine, immunotherapy or autoimmunity research that doesn’t incorporate (his) thinking.” – Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty, in reference to Professor Jacques Miller (Walter+Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 2017).
Current Developments in immunotherapy
The future of immunotherapy for cancer is becoming increasingly more positive and exciting with regards to the developments now being made, along with the breakthroughs that have been made in recent years (Forde et al, 2013. Raval et al, 2014. Sanlorenzo et al, 2014). These most recent and current developments started with the evident success against advanced tumours in humans which was attained by the use of monoclonal antibodies in the inhibition of T cell checkpoint molecules (Daniel Regan et al, 2016).
One of the most major advances in tumour immunotherapy is the progress of the artificially produced monoclonal antibodies specific to tumour antigens, which have been modified to directly destruct the cells (Zhou et al, 2014). The treatment of tumours in this way not only involves immune mechanisms, but also non-immune mechanisms as well. On several occasions, monoclonal antibodies against canine lymphoma have been evaluated in clinical trials and they gave promising results – as reported in the annual meeting of the Veterinary Cancer Society in 2014, the combination of chemotherapy with the canine anti-CD20 antibody were very successful against dogs with B-cell lymphoma. As a result, this anti-CD20 is now being used in American and Canadian clinics to treat dogs with this disease (Daniel Regan et al, 2016).
Whereas in previous years only very limited variations of cancer have been able to be treated based off of the basic research available to work from, new anticancer biopharmaceuticals such as these highly developed monoclonal antibodies have been manipulated and applied to treat a range of different cancers. This is possible because they can target the specific antigens for each type of cancer, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia, lymphoma and also lung and renal cancers. As years of research go on, scientists are finding a much wider range of treatments available to treat a much wider variety of cancers in animals, which is a huge positive for veterinarians and pet owners. However, all of this research into cancer immunotherapy does come at a cost, with hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on it each year.
Conclusion
Overall, the commitment and research involved in the development of anti-cancer drugs over years has significantly improved the treatment of cancers for animals available today. The growth of knowledge and practice in this area of veterinary medicine is a hugely valuable factor to improving the animal health industry and extending the lives of millions of cancer patients all over the world. There is no doubt that this research will continue and develop even further over the future decades and we are yet to discover just how far scientists and researchers can push their knowledge and technical abilities to produce what could potentially be truly amazing results for the animal health industry.
References
Cancer Veterinary Centres. (n.d.) Immunotherapy – Dogs and Cats. [online]. http://www.cancervetsfl.com/immunotherapy-dogs-cats/(Accessed 14thNovember, 2018).
Decker, W.K. et al. (2017) Cancer Immunotherapy: Historical Perspective of a Clinical Revolution and Emerging Preclinical Animal Models. US National Library of Medicine.
Forde, P.M. et al. (2013) What Lies Within: Novel Strategies in Immunotherapy for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. The official journal of the Society for Translational Oncology.
Greenwood, T. et al. (2015) AQA Biology 1 A-Level Year 1/AS Student Workbook. Biozone.
Raval, R.R. et al. (2014) Tumour immunology and cancer immunotherapy: summary of the 2013 SITC primer. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.
Regan, D. et al. (2016) Cancer immunotherapy in veterinary medicine: Current options and new developments. The Veterinary Journal.
Sanlorenzo, M. et al. (2014) Melanoma immunotherapy. Cancer Biology & Therapy.
Walter + Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. (2017) Professor Jacques Miller. [online]. https://www.wehi.edu.au/about-history/notable-scientists/professor-jacques-miller
(Accessed 14thNovember, 2018).
World Health Organisation. (2018) The top 10 causes of death. [online]. http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
(Accessed 8thNovember, 2018).
Zhou, L. et al. (2014) Targeted biopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment. Cancer Letters.
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