Hong Kong study reveals new lung cancer treatment, researchers say findings could help 70 per cent of patients
- Gene-edited white blood cells inhibited tumour growth in mice, according to study carried out by Chinese University
- Existing immunotherapy methods not always effective for majority of lung cancer patients, oncologist Herbert Loong says
A research team from a Hong Kong university has discovered a new way of treating lung cancer involving gene-edited white blood cells, which it says could help 70 per cent of patients who do not benefit from existing immunotherapy methods.
The Chinese University team on Monday said its findings showed the modified cells had inhibited tumour growth in mice, indicating that there was treatment potential for humans if they were injected into lung tumours.
“We hope to further translate our research discovery into a safe and effective new generation of immunotherapy for solid cancers,” said Professor To Ka-fai, chairman of the department of anatomical and cellular pathology at the university, referring to cancers with tumours.
Lung cancer accounted for 26.7 per cent of all cancer deaths in 2021, the most of all forms of cancer fatalities. In 2020, there were 5,422 cases of the disease in the city.
According to oncologist Herbert Loong Ho-fung, clinical associate professor at the university, existing immunotherapy methods were not always effective for most lung cancer patients in the city.
“If we only use immunotherapy on patients, only about 30 per cent of them would yield good treatment results,” Loong said.
The experiments on laboratory mice involved extracting neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, from human blood before injecting mice with tumours with either an unmodified version or a gene-edited one.
