Study opens up new ovarian cancer treatment opportunities

New groundbreaking research is a crucial step forward in understanding the potential for developing new treatments for women with ovarian cancer by harnessing the power of immunotherapy.

The study published this week in Nature Genetics investigated the potential benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy to increase the level of specific immune cells in and around tumour sites of people with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC).

The results reveal why ovarian tumours that appear similar respond differently to the same treatment and open up new avenues of research to improve current treatments and explore new ones. Furthermore, the findings suggest that by combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy, which activates the body’s immune cells surrounding the tumour, it could improve patients’ response to treatment in a disease that so far remains largely incurable at late stages.

Combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy could improve response to treatment

HGSOC is a common form of epithelial ovarian cancer, accounting for over six of every 10 cases of epithelial ovarian cancer in the UK. The majority of HGSOC cases are usually treated with a combination of chemotherapy and surgery, targeting cancerous cells that make up the tumour. While the disease initially responds to treatment, and the recent introduction of PARP inhibitors has been highly beneficial, HGSOC has a high recurrence rate in patients.

In the study, multiple tumour samples were collected from 50 HGSOC patients. To understand the role that the patients’ immune system might play in fighting the tumour, the team looked at the types of immune cells that were present before and after chemotherapy.

In patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy, results of the study demonstrated that there was an increase in the level of specific immune cells (natural killer cells and T cells) in and around the tumours. These cells could play an important role in targeting and removing the tumour.  The study results also found that high levels of activity mediated by two genes – called Myc and Wnt genes – and their effector pathways were associated with low levels of immune cells getting into the tumour.

Potential for developing new treatments for ovarian cancer

Research lead, Dr Martin Miller at the CRUK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge, said: €œThe complex interplay between tumour cells and their immediate environment can affect treatment outcomes for cancer. However it is unclear how this occurs in ovarian cancer as, until now, very little research has been done into this.

“The results of this study confirm that neoadjuvant chemotherapy provides an important effect of increasing the level of specific immune cells in HGSOC and brings us closer to understanding how the environment varies around the tumours in HGSOC within a patient and even within a single tumour.

“Despite high rates of response to initial treatment, HGSOC has a high recurrence rate and immunotherapy has yet to deliver the success seen in other cancer types. These findings open up exciting opportunities for new combination therapies to be further investigated, which could improve clinical outcomes for women with HGSOC.”

Cancer survival has doubled in the last 40 years, but progress in this area is not equal across all types of the disease, and HGSOC still has a poor five-year survival rate with limited improvement in the past decade.

Annwen Jones OBE, Chief Executive of Target Ovarian Cancer, said: “This groundbreaking research is a crucial step forward in understanding the potential for developing new treatments for women with ovarian cancer by harnessing the power of immunotherapy. I’m very proud that Target Ovarian Cancer is playing a pioneering role in funding research in this area. These promising early findings underline the opportunities that we now have to transform the future through research, and give us all hope of finding much-needed new ovarian cancer treatments.”