The researchers investigated the part perineural invasion and cancer-associated nerve injury play in immunotherapy resistance typically observed in stomach cancer, melanoma, and squamous cell carcinoma patients. They found “that cancer cells break down the protective myelin sheaths that cover nerve fibers, and that the injured nerves promote their own healing and regeneration through an inflammatory response.” However, the inflammatory response gets stuck “in a chronic feedback loop as tumors continue to grow.” This harms the nerves “which then recruit and exhaust the immune system, ushering in an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment that leads to treatment resistance.” This could be reversed by “targeting the cancer-induced nerve injury pathway at different points,” according to MD Anderson.
Co-corresponding author Moran Amit, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Head and Neck Surgery emphasized that the findings “could transform the way we approach resistance to immunotherapy in patients with cancer.”
