Very Active Research in Immunotherapy
Lore than a hundred immunotherapy clinical trials are ongoing in the world.
As was the case last year, immunotherapy is set to feature prominently at the prestigious annual event. Over one hundred clinical trials are currently being conducted in the field worldwide.
Prof. Christophe Le Tourneau, a medical oncologist and Head of the Department of Early Clinical Trials at Institut Curie, is organizing one of the sessions, during which he will present several recent advances in immunotherapy, designed to help practitioners optimize patient care.
The professor’s presentation on tumor hyperprogression will be a particular highlight. While immunotherapy is very effective in 10 to 20% of cancer patients, the treatment does not work for the majority. It appears that it can even have the reverse effect in certain cases. Prof. Le Tourneau’s team was one of the first three in the world to report this phenomenon*. After the first case of a patient experiencing rapid progression of their disease following the initiation of immunotherapy was observed at Institut Curie, a multi-center study was set up (involving Gustave Roussy, Centre Léon Bérard, and Centre Antoine Lacassagne) to confirm this phenomenon. “Since then, ‘hyperprogression’ of this nature has been reported by several other teams, particularly in the United States,” notes Prof. Le Tourneau.
