Drugs could help body fight cancer

New drug treatments are being developed that help the body fight cancer by unleashing the immune system on weakened tumours.

Researchers believe in future they could be used to spare children the harsh side effects of chemotherapy.

The drugs have the potential to treat a range of different childhood cancers, including leukaemia, and diseases of the bones, brain and nerves.

US scientists at the University of Texas studied their effects on laboratory-grown tissue cultures.

The drugs work by making cancer cells more vulnerable to attack by the immune system's natural killer (NK) cells. At the same time, they cause NK cells to become better at targeting tumours.

Dr Dean Lee, from the university's MD Anderson Cancer Centre, said: "Traditional chemotherapy drugs kill any fast-growing cells like cancer, but they also killed healthy fast-growing cells like hair, bone marrow and mucous membranes, making the drugs very toxic.

"There's a new class of drugs that takes cells that aren't properly regulated and makes them behave. In our study, we found that these drugs make tumour cells more recognisable and vulnerable to natural killer cells."

Dr Lee found that combining NK cells with the drugs produced a potent combination.

One drug, MS-275, was tested on laboratory-grown tissue cultures of osteosarcoma, the most common type of malignant bone cancer. The drug increased the ability of NK cells to target stress signals emitted by the tumour cells. At the same time it increased the stress signals, making the cancer more vulnerable to attack.

Two other drugs, Bortezomib and NPI-0052, were found to have similar effects on leukaemia cells and neuroblastoma, a cancer that affects nerve tissue.

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