Platelets can guide immunotherapy against cancer cells

2017/01/24 Agirre Ruiz de Arkaute, Aitziber - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza
• Biokimika

To prevent the growth of new tumors after the removal of a tumor, the United States has tested a new platelet strategy. Platelets, to the extent that they help clot the blood in the wounds, tend to tend towards the areas of wounds and, taking advantage of this, they can serve to carry antibodies against cancer cells that may remain in place after the surgical removal of a tumor. Not only that, since platelets are bleeding, they can also know cancer cells that have passed into the blood and can cause metastasis.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina have proposed this new strategy and have seen that it is at least effective in the mouse. Platelets have been extracted from mice, antibodies have been added to the membrane to these platelets in the laboratory, and mice have been put back into the blood. These platelets have gone to the surgical area of the new tumor removed and released antibodies, which has improved the body's immune response, significantly decreasing the cancer reappearance.

In this way, they wanted to solve one of the major difficulties of immunotherapy: to guide the antibodies to the right place and reach the mobile cancer cells that are spreading. The researchers have clarified that at the moment only tests have been done in mice and that it will have to see what results give in humans.