Study explains why certain immunotherapies don't always work as predicted

Study explains why certain immunotherapies don't always work as predicted.

MIT study: Measure diversity of mutations within a tumor generated more accurate predictions of whether the treatment would succeed.

If validated in clinical trials, this information could help doctors to better determine which patients will benefit from checkpoint blockade inhibitors.

Researchers analyzed data from two small clinical trials of people treated with checkpoint blockade inhibitors for colorectal or stomach cancer.

After analyzing the sequences of the patients' tumors, they found that patients' whose tumors were more homogeneous responded better to the treatment.

The findings also suggest that treating patients with drugs that block the DNA mismatch repair pathway may not help and could be harmful.