Courtesy Prasad Adusumilli / Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer is hell. Part of the reason it wreaks havoc on your body so effectively is because it can evade and circumvent the immune system remarkably well. Without clearer warning signs that something is wrong, a tumor grows and metastasizes under the radar with very few obstacles. Once signs of the cancer are finally detected, it may be in a late stage where a patient has few options for treatment.
How are cancer cells able to avoid the immune system’s defenses? Scientists have been obsessively trying to answer this question for over a century now. A new study published in Nature Immunology Thursday has found that T cells, an integral part of how the body mounts an immune response against pathogens and deadly invaders, become “exhausted” within mere hours of encountering a tumor.
“The idea has been that T cells that are exposed to an antigen (such as a tumor or pathogen) for a long time are working and working, and then at some point they sort of peter out,” Mary Philip, an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a co-author of the new study, said in a press release.